


Alive and Unwell

by littl_prince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Battle of Hogwarts, Established Relationship, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, POV Remus Lupin, POV Severus Snape, Remus Lupin Lives, Severus Snape Lives, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 59,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24423703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littl_prince/pseuds/littl_prince
Summary: Severus Snape finds himself saved by an unlikely source of help, and presented with choices he never thought he would have.An AU of the Battle of Hogwarts and the immediate aftermath through multiple POV's, from Ronald Weasley to Nymphadora Tonks. But the main thread follows two men, who have found each other time and time again - and this time, might just be on the way to finding themselves.
Relationships: Severus Snape/Remus Lupin
Comments: 74
Kudos: 194





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape

Severus Snape had never been one to admit defeat easily. One would assume that, had he any scrap of will left to live, Death would only be able to take him by crawling out of His fabled tunnels and coming to him Himself, dragging him kicking and screaming to the other side. So it would be a relief to Death that Severus Snape’s life left him before his breath did. There were blank spots in his mind where flashes of faded memories had once resided, memories that were now held in the dirty and trembling hand of the boy.

_Harry_ , said a voice in his head. _There is no need to hide anything anymore. Call him by his name._

_The boy,_ Severus fought back. _If it is strength that the boy needs to carry out the deed he is facing, then it will not help if I were to show sentiment._

He contemplated closing his eyes. The pain was fogging his vision anyway, or maybe he was giving the boy the much-detested show of sentiment after all. All he could see now was a mushed blur of colors, a glint of that damned green amidst the browns and greys of the Shack. 

_How fitting,_ another stray thought came to mind, _for him to meet his end in the very place where he had first seen his life flashing before his eyes, helpless, more than twenty years ago._ How many times had he thought he was going to die since then? It was unnerving and comforting at the same time that it all connected back here, to Hogwarts, to the place that had made him, had ruined him.

He had never had much time or patience for stray thoughts. Or perhaps he had told himself that, ever since a single drifting thought had become enough to condemn him and all his efforts.

Urging his mind to focus for one last time, to see the last thing, anything, before he left, was an effort that proved futile. Still nothing but blurs. The orange blob in the corner of his vision that was probably the youngest Weasley boy. Black shapes that were hair, or robes. Brown. Green.

And then a streak of scarlet.

Severus’s mind first jumped to blood. Not his, no, he had surely lost too much blood for it to be spurting out of him so. But the boy’s. _Harry’s._ Surely the Dark Lord had returned, realized that the man he hunted had been hiding in the place he’d just vacated for the past quarter of an hour. Severus willed himself to _see_.

Louder sounds than whispers or rustles of clothing accompanied the ongoing ringing in his ears, as he felt himself slipping. People were talking. The red blur did not spatter to the ground or even sink, but remained at his eye level — not blood, then — and there was a weight on his chest that had not been there before. 

Death, perhaps. Or Harry — was he still here? Why was he still here? Was he still staring into Severus’s eyes as if trying to find something he had long lost, or else turning his wand in his hand, warring with the urge to kill the man who had lost him his parents —

_“Kill me like you killed him, you coward —”_

Severus closed his eyes. Darkness engulfed him. It was his sanctuary, his escape, the only place where he had ever felt he belonged, that limbo between sleeping and waking. If only the pounding in his ears would _stop_ …

“Hermione, stop gaping, get your wand out, now!”

“But Ron — What if…”

“Now! Harry, mate, get back, get back here. Get away from him.”

The pain was leaving him, as was the muffled drumming he had attempted to will away. He supposed he was nearing his last few seconds, and soon his soul would sweep the dust from its knees and be on its way. But as his awareness of his dying body faded, his senses were sharpening. He could make out the words being said somewhere above him, feel something much runnier than blood dribbling down his neck (oh, his neck must look a mess) and the blood caking his front as it soaked uncomfortably into the fabric and stuck to his fingers. And the weight on his chest was not just pressing as a hand might, but was clinging to his robes, and he felt the slight stab of something sharp on his chest.

“You have fought valiantly.”

Severus bolted upright with a strength he knew he shouldn’t have. His eyes flew around the small shack, but the Dark Lord had not returned. All the same, his voice rang inside the room as if he were standing in the middle of it with an Amplifying Charm on himself.

His sudden movement had dislodged the thing that had been sitting on his chest, and he looked down at its indignant caw. The large red-and-gold bird paid no mind to the voice still ringing uncomfortably loudly inside the shack. Instead, it climbed back onto him in a stubborn fashion and laid its head back on his bloody neck to finish the job it had started.

“Fawkes.” He was surprised he could speak at all, and yet his voice was the same as he remembered it, if a bit hoarse. The pain was gone, he realized, and what he felt was just an invisible imprint of it, like lights flashing in front of closed eyes.

Around him and — as he focused his gaze — the three children who were no longer children, the Dark Lord’s voice continued to ring. In the haze of the terrible stabbing agony he had felt in his neck, he could feel a mild migraine coming on.

“I command my forces to retreat immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.

“I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you.”

Severus’s eyes flew to where the boy stood, still a few steps closer than his two friends. He was frowning, as he had often done when trying to read cramped instructions on the board in Potions classes. The vial holding the memories, Severus saw, were held tightly in his hand. 

Behind him, Ronald Weasley’s eyes were fixed on his back. Hermione Granger was glancing from the boy to Severus, eyes wide and frightened, her trembling wand pointing in the general direction where Severus lay.

Fawkes shifted and climbed up on his shoulder, shielding him from her, as the last few words of the Dark Lord’s speech shook around them.

“— every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Weasley immediately.

Severus realized that the boy had been returning his gaze for a good few full seconds now. In the back of his mind where his twitchy childhood self lived, a voice screeched to look away.

His childhood self had been locked up in the back of his mind for a reason. He maintained eye contact.

The boy’s mind opened as if Severus were a long-awaited guest, and he tumbled into the familiar space. He saw himself striking down Dumbledore from the tallest tower, and then beside Hagrid’s burning hut, screaming at the boy not to call him a coward.

As he pulled back out again, now back to looking at the green eyes that seemed to hold him in place, he knew that the boy was asking a question.

“You will find the answers you are looking for in the memories I have passed on to you.”

Weasley jumped, apparently having forgotten that Severus was there.

“We should kill you,” he said. There was an uncharacteristic rough and jerky edge to his voice, and suddenly Severus felt a jolt of fear for the red-headed children who had been in his care for so long. How many heartbeats had died tonight? “Why shouldn’t we kill you?”

“Ron.” Hermione Granger tugged at his sleeve. Her wand arm was now limp by her side and her eyes were on Fawkes, who was still spread out in front of Severus’s chest defiantly like a shield. Naive girl; for all her intellect and quick-thinking, she had always been open-armed. He had never been able to comprehend the trusting nature of those who did not use their skills for doubt and manipulation.

Severus addressed the boy ( _Harry_ ) again as if he had not heard the exchange. “As you may have heard just now,” he gestured around the shack, “there is not much time left. It would be foolish of you to keep wasting it here.”

Emerald eyes bore into him, and he saw the guilt there, the anguish, the fear, as the Dark Lord’s words returned to the forefront of the boy’s mind. _Don’t dwell on it,_ he might have said, _this see-through attempt to manipulate you, making you into some warlord when you are but a boy still._ But it would be pure and utter hypocrisy to join in Weasley’s attempts to stop him walking to his death — that place in the Forbidden Forest where Dumbledore and the Dark Lord’s wishes merged…

So he instead raised an eyebrow.

He had never been one for difficult conversations.

“Is the Pensieve still there?” asked the boy. “The… headmaster’s office?”

“Yes.”

They stared at each other for another long moment. The two flanking the boy were looking between the two of them, having apparently no idea how the situation would play out. Of course, with his Legilimency and with startlingly green eyes still locked on him, Severus had no such problem.

Harry nodded. He shifted slightly, as if to leave.

“Mate,” said Weasley, though he sounded less certain than he had before. Granger, who Severus had expected would intervene at some point with some long-winded mishmash of theories and advice, spoke up at last, though the speech he had predicted did not come.

“Wait,” she said, glancing from Severus to Fawkes to Harry and back. “The — the password.”

It took Severus a moment to make sense of the statement. He understood at the same time Harry seemed to; he really must be addled.

“What is it?” asked Harry.

Severus paused. Cursed and cringed at his inane sentiment.

“Dumbledore,” he said.

All three pairs of eyes on him widened. It was almost comical, but Severus had long forgotten how to laugh properly.

Another moment, all of them frozen in time but for Fawkes, shifting his grip on Severus’s robes — and then Harry turned to go.

“We’ll walk to the Great Hall together, then,” said Weasley. The suspicion had not quite gone out of his expression, but like Granger, the bird seemed to have had an effect on him.

“What about —” started Granger, but stopped with her hand still frozen where it had twitched towards Severus. He felt a surge of something inside his chest. _Foolish girl, too worrying, too caring for her own good_. But he did not do well with expressing himself, had never done — it always came out either a smartly sharpened insult or a garbled shaking mess.

He raised an eyebrow again. He didn’t quite trust himself to say anything.

Harry was staring at him again, and when they met eyes once more, he seemed to search. Apparently Granger had rubbed off on him as well. It was Severus’s turn to nod.

“Let’s go,” Harry said. “Best cover ourselves with the cloak.” And with their last backwards glances at the unlikely pair of bird and man, all three of them turned and started to make their way out of the Shrieking Shack.

For a second — for the thousandth second this year — Severus considered calling Harry back, telling him not to go, telling him that there was surely another way, or perhaps that it did not matter if there was not.

He had never been one for hard goodbyes. He watched them go without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my first HP fic, but it's the first I'm posting to this site. I got the motivation to write this because of Snape Appreciation Month 2020(@snapeloveposts). I go by littl-prince on Tumblr, where I post HP (mainly Snape) content (I've only been active there for about two months, so this is all very new to me). I will try as hard as I can to maintain a weekly upload schedule. Thank you for reading this first chapter, and I hope you'll stick around!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin

The wind whistled and wailed, echoing off the high walls and towers of Hogwarts as if the very castle was crying its agony. Remus Lupin stared out over the grounds, though he was not really looking at anything.

Over ten minutes had passed since the Death Eaters had suddenly and inexplicably retreated. For a fleeting moment, he had wondered if they were surrendering. And then Voldemort’s speech had rung out across the school, and fearful understanding had settled low in his stomach.

The fear had not thawed yet.

Had he done the right thing?

A few minutes before that speech — or it might have been an hour, or two… In a secluded corner of the vast castle… Fourth floor, south wing, behind two tapestries and a moving wall… 

He had been chasing a Death Eater. Or they had been chasing each other. Those damned masks never betrayed the eyes of the wearer, and there was no variation in the robes they all wore, but his hands had been bare. And then, of course, there was the wand, which was a dead giveaway once you got a proper look.

All the way to that corner they had run, giving chase one second and fleeing the next. For all the time they had spent dueling, neither of them had attacked much — just overpowered shield charms and some feeble reducto’s on castle walls.

Until they had reached that alcove, Remus had not quite comprehended that he had been led there. He had cursed himself when he finally understood. But his opponent’s aim on him was still not true, and Remus did not fire either, and after a few moments of tense silence the man behind the mask spoke.

“Harry Potter must come to the Shrieking Shack as soon as possible.”

“Why?” His voice shook, but he didn’t even bother to attempt to calm it. “So Voldemort can finish him?”

“No.” A pause. “Because I will be there.”

Another pause. “What does that —” Remus started, but he was cut off.

“There is a matter of great urgency that I must inform him of. That Dumbledore — wished me — to inform him of.”

The man’s words sparked a fire in Remus, and he wasn’t sure if it was fury or despair or a desperate, desperate hope.

“You killed him.” 

“Yes.” The Death Eater’s voice faltered for the first time since he had started talking. “And I — I need to help the boy make sense of it, among… other things.”

“… You _killed_ him,” Remus repeated dumbly.

Severus Snape did not reply. 

“There is not much time,” he said instead. “The entire war effort would be futile if this information is not passed on to him.”

“Take off your mask,” said Remus suddenly. He could not stand it, couldn’t bear to stare at that metallic mockery of a face. He needed to see him, to look into his eyes, to seek reassurance —

 _Wanting honest answers from a triple agent who has long since shown his true colours,_ said a voice inside his head, _do you truly think that_ seeing his expression _will help you determine if he is lying or not? How much more idiotic can you be?_

Snape was still for a few seconds. Then he reached up and swiftly lifted the mask from his face. The moonlight hit his aquiline nose and his eyes were tunnels, caves, caverns… Just as Remus remembered.

“There is not much time,” he repeated, slowly this time, like he used to do when he suspected Remus wasn’t paying attention.

Remus did not look away, kept his eyes fixed on that face, and that was probably a mistake as well. Because he did not just meet Snape’s eyes. He fell into them, tumbled head over heels. And then he was lost again.

“Alright.”

_Idiot, you absolute idiot. How could you possibly believe —  
_

“Tell no one.” Snape’s voice was a whisper. He said the words like a prayer. And of course Remus could only return one answer.

“I won’t.” Even as the words left his lips, he doubted, his mind a dull whirr of thoughts, his heart beating a dull, painful beat against his ribs — was this the end of time?

And then Snape moved forwards jerkily, and Remus stumbled to meet him, and then they were breathing the air from each others’ mouths. Five fleeting seconds. Though it might have been twenty. It might have been a hundred years.

And now Remus gazed over the grounds, looking for someone but not really seeing anything. Severus’s face loomed in front of him, taut, as if he was in pain. _Was it a goodbye?_ He wondered. _Please, Merlin, tell me that wasn’t a goodbye._

He hadn’t even said anything. Just let his fingertips slip through lank black hair as Severus strode back out of the alcove. _What did you mean, ‘there isn’t much time’? Where were you going? What were you going to do?_

He had stood by himself after Severus had gone, his hand still outstretched, before he, too, ran out and up marble staircases to the upper ramparts where he could see the full scope of the Hogwarts grounds. He had searched for any hint of Harry, Ron, or Hermione. As each second passed, he could feel time and hope slipping from his hands, and he thought of black eyes that were tunnels. 

Then he had spotted them at last. They were — running towards the Whomping Willow. It took an impossibly long time for them to get there, and they dodged around giants and acromantulas and dementors, but Remus knew where they were headed. 

He could have gone to them and stopped them; the anti-apparition wards in the old castle had long since broken anyway. But Remus stood and looked on. He watched the branches of the great gnarled tree still, and the threesome disappear inside the trunk, his heart thumping loudly all the while.

 _A backup plan,_ Remus had thought. _He always has a backup plan. Perhaps I_ was _the backup plan._

And all the fight had gone out of him, and he had felt unbelievably relieved and bizarrely disappointed at the same time.

And now he just stood there. He asked questions in his head as though Severus might answer him if he asked them loudly enough. _Why did you kill Dumbledore? Why were you pursuing_ me _in that chase, the chase where you lost George his ear? Why didn’t you tell me anything? Why did you leave me behind, to process it all, to question everything I thought I knew?_

_If I had asked to go with you, would you have said yes? Because I would have. I would have followed you anywhere. I still would._

The wind howled, and Remus felt like howling with it. He thought of faded faces of long-lost friends. Rumpled hair and green eyes he remembered so vividly only because of Harry. The rest was a blur, had been for years and years. Even when he stared into photos, he couldn’t seem to remember. Like he had let a chunk of them vanish and now he could never get them back. 

How many times had he seen James laugh? Seen Peter dozing in the library and drooling all over his book, seen them all crowded around his bed in the hospital wing? More than fifty, that was for sure. How many times had they huddled around the Gryffindor fireplace? At least a hundred. Then why couldn’t he picture it?

Even Sirius his mind had mostly erased, even though it had only been, what, two years? Whenever he saw him in dreams after his death, he had been gaunt and dead-looking, fresh from Azkaban. He had horribly looked more and more like an Inferius each time. _That’s not you,_ Remus would start to say, and then, _or is it? Am I remembering you right? Or has this been the real you, since that Halloween?_

Remus found he was haunted by him more than he missed him. Perhaps he had been ever since he had first seen him again, after those twelve long years. The skull-like face he had looked away from in the Prophet pictures. That face had once held not one care in the world, had been so _easy_ , quick to both mirth and anger. And Remus _knew_ that; he just couldn’t seem to recall it.

But for all he had let go and forgotten, he had not forgotten a second when it came to Severus. Everything was so vivid that he had wished it would all go away countless times this past year, to vanish as the memories of his childhood friends had done. To leave his mind, never to return. _No, no, not never,_ frantic and desperate. And then he would be back where he had started.

He felt the presence behind him before he heard it, and he whirled around, wand at the ready — before he saw that it was only Kingsley, and then remembered that the Death Eaters had all retreated.

Kingsley’s robes had been ripped in some places. There was a gash on his forehead and a bandage on his left shoulder, but otherwise he seemed unscathed. “Remus,” he greeted.

“Kingsley.” Remus lowered his wand. “How long has it been?”

“A little over fifteen minutes, I think.”

“Oh.” That was longer than he had thought. “And… ”

“Sent some people out from the Great Hall to look for Harry. So far, nothing.”

“The Great Hall?”

“Yes. The injured and the — the dead, they’re all there. You haven’t been down, then?”

“No.” Remus dreaded, dreaded, dreaded, and he did not ask. _Coward._ But then he had always been.

Kingsley had always seemed to understand that. He had never been one to judge; Remus was thankful for it, especially as Kingsley did not know half of what was causing his insides to roil in fear and doubt.

“Ron and Hermione are also down there,” he said, and Remus heard his heart beating a painful thud against his ribs. “Asked them about Harry too. They say they don’t know either.” Kingsley narrowed his eyes, glancing to the side as if trying to catch a lie lurking in a shadowy corner. “Though I do get the feeling they’re hiding something.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” said Remus. _Alive_ , was all he could think. _They’re alive_. He could scarcely hear over the pounding in his chest.

“Do _you_ have any idea where he might be, then? Must have had a pretty good view up here.” Kingsley peered over Remus’s shoulder at the grounds. 

Remus’s heart stilled. He thought of a raised eyebrow, a reluctant chuckle. He thought of being gazed at as if he was the last thing on Earth. _If I had asked all of these questions, would you have told me? If we have time after all this, will you?_

He thought of a look shared, devoid of all walls and shields, open and raw, at four in the morning inside the quarters deep in the dungeons. He thought of a voice, quietened as if pleading, as if it were holding back a sob. _“Tell no one.”_ And at last, for the first time that night, the first time that year, he no longer found himself doubting. He _believed_.

"No," he said, and the lie was easy. "I didn't see him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted this chapter a bit earlier than a week after the previous one, and I'll probably be uploading weekly from now on. Your thoughts and opinions mean a lot to me, and I'd love to hear them <3 Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape  
> Severus contemplates his choices.

It took quite a long time to patch himself up. It took even longer to pull himself together.

Fawkes kept trying to settle on his shoulder, cawing indignantly whenever Severus moved around. He decided to ignore the bird but for a few attempts at disdainful glances. He found it was rather hard to be disdainful towards a creature that had just saved his life.

 _Even though he had been so ready to go_ , he thought. Or tried not to.

After he had siphoned off some of the blood that had drenched the front of his robes and checked the state of his neck with a reflection charm — a few telltale bite marks where the snake’s teeth had first sunk in, but otherwise scarless — he made his way to the tattered mattress and sank down onto it.

He wondered whether it had been a mistake to give away some of the more personal memories. He had done it with the thought of dying in mind, and now he saw how pointless and time-consuming it would be for Harry to see all of it, not to mention humiliating. But he had needed Harry to see, to know, perhaps even to… understand.

It was nothing short of idiotic, though Remus might have said that wanting to be understood was just basic human nature. Remus had always said things were basic human nature in a way that suggested he himself was a stranger to it. It was ironic, seeing as he seemed to know human nature much better than Severus ever had. Severus had told him that once. It had made Remus laugh.

Severus tugged his sleeves over his hands aggressively and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. He shifted so that he was no longer sitting on the protruding spring on the mattress. Fawkes settled beside him with a smart ruffle of his feathers, having given up trying to hitch a ride on his shoulder.

Glancing around after a minute, Severus saw that Fawkes was looking at him expectantly.

“What?”

The bird kept staring at him and cocked its head, as though it was asking him what he was going to do next, now that he was done with his lamenting.

What _was_ he going to do? The one-sided ceasefire would buy him some time, but to do what? He looked at Fawkes, convinced the bird had something to do with the answer. Of all the inexplicable things Dumbledore had kept in his office, the phoenix had definitely been the most treasured, and it had often appeared to know Dumbledore’s thoughts before the old wizard had even expressed them. If it had sought Severus out right when he was breathing his dying breaths, it was most probably for some sort of plan of Dumbledore’s.

A years-old exhaustion filled him at the thought. He recalled that night by the Forbidden Forest. _“You take a great deal for granted, Dumbledore!”_ A declaration of all his frustrations, the aches he had long kept hidden, that had reverberated through the decades of doubt and regret.

 _“You gave me your word, Severus.”_ As if that settled it.

Had it been that moment Severus had thought of, when he had summoned up the will and hatred to carry out that last service? The service that had turned out not to be the last at all. The bird’s eyes were beady and questioning.

He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised if this meant something was being asked of him again. The parts he had opened up for Dumbledore to see, Dumbledore had milked them for all they were worth. The old man had attempted to hide that behind his twinkling expression and his offers of sweets, and Severus knew he thought the deception had worked on his reluctant double agent as it had worked on so many others. He had thought until his last moments that, despite Severus once accusing him of having used him, Severus did not know the true extent to which he manipulated those under him.

Thank Merlin for that.

“I owe him nothing,” said Severus. Fawkes cocked his head again. “I do not know why you came here, but if I did I would refuse to do it, whatever it is.”

Was it exasperation he saw in the bird’s eyes? _That’s not an emotion that was expressed at me often_ , he thought.

“Peck my damned eyes out for all I care,” he challenged. “I have been Albus Dumbledore’s puppet for long enough. I will do it no more.”

The look the bird was wearing deepened; it was definitely exasperation. Severus ignored it. _Arguing with a bird_ , he thought. _I might as well throw my mind in the gutter._

Would Harry be watching the memories by now? The thought brought on a churning in his gut. He really shouldn’t have included some of them. He had no doubt Harry would take them at face value; that boy had always done with everything, had no suspect for ulterior motives or hidden intentions. And it wasn’t as if Severus had _had_ any hidden intentions.

 _You showed him what you wanted him to see,_ said the voice inside his head.

 _Dumbledore tasked me with telling him he had to die,_ Severus thought. _I didn’t want to show him_ that _, that was for sure._

_You could have asked for your memories back. You could have sat him down right here in the Shack and told him what he had to do. You would have saved him a lot of time and energy._

_He wouldn’t have believed me._

_Then surely, including Dumbledore telling you of the deed would have been enough to make him believe. Why stretch it out, include your reaction to it?_

Back and forth, warring with himself as he had so often done, and over the most pointless things too. What did it matter _why_ , he thought angrily. It wasn’t as if he could march back into the castle to take the memories back either way.

How long would viewing the memories take? Was it already over, perhaps? Was Harry already walking out of the office, down the castle, across the courtyard, for the last time? 

No, it was too soon for that. 

He found it strange, once again, how he had never questioned what Harry would do once he found out the truth. He had never once asked Dumbledore, or even himself, “Would Harry even do it?” Of course he would; it was a stupid question. If it were a matter of others’ lives, Harry Potter would have done the most ridiculously outrageous things without a second thought. He had always been like that. Severus had only recently realized that he had known it all along.

And when Harry did it, would the war be won?

_“If I know him, he will have arranged matters so that when he does set out to meet his death, it will truly mean the end of Voldemort.”_

‘If I know him,’ Dumbledore had said. It was a completely unnecessary statement, the kind of thing Severus would have frustratedly crossed out of a student’s essay. Dumbledore knew most everything, and Harry had always been an open book. Whatever Dumbledore meant by Harry “arranging matters” before his death, he was almost certain they would be done. So that would mean Severus’s job was done as well. Outside of working to bring down the Dark Lord, there was nothing of importance that Dumbledore had ever asked of him.

So why was he still here?

Severus peered down at Fawkes again, as though the bird might suddenly start speaking in Dumbledore’s voice, instructing him on what he was to do next and convincing him that it was crucial that he carry out the deed. He had lost count of the amount of times Dumbledore had sat him down and dropped the genial act to calmly and seriously explain the importance of something Severus had shown reluctance in doing.

For all his brilliance, Dumbledore had always been blindly believing in raw emotions.

During the nights he couldn’t find it in himself to even attempt to sleep, he had sometimes imagined going up to Dumbledore’s blasted portrait and telling him just how much he knew Dumbledore thought he had known about Severus, and how much of that had been a lie. It was not as if that would have a point, not really -- he had done everything Dumbledore had ordered him to, and refrained from everything Dumbledore had forbidden. He hadn’t been a foil for his plans. He had not failed him, purposefully or otherwise.

But there would have been bitter satisfaction in the act, that was one thing. Of all the things Severus had done, not letting Dumbledore in on his secrets while giving the illusion of opening himself up had been one of his proudest deeds. The very thing Dumbledore himself had taught him to do.

 _He will not have all of me._ He still remembered that night rather vividly, with a years-old memory of an almost unhinged sense of desperation. The first time he had decided to put his skills of deception for his own selfish use. _He will not have all of me._ And he had gotten his wish with his will. A small and pathetic victory.

But a treasured one nonetheless. What was his life, after all, apart from the small things, the feeble moments he clutched to himself during sleepless nights? He had almost looked forward to the day he would stand in the office for the last time, with all those portraits bearing witness to his declaration of how Dumbledore did not, in fact, own him, no, he did not.

Of course, it wasn’t as if he had actually been able to _do_ it. His unforseen escape from the castle had seen to that. He could still hear Minerva McGonagall screaming “Coward!” as he fled, the word amplifying and layering on itself until it became a thousand fingers, all pointing at him, snarling, leering.

Maybe he had been in such a haste to run because he had sensed Harry there — _What was he doing in the castle, the absolute idiot?_ — and he needed to reinforce the wards. (Minerva had apparently overlooked that until now, in that Gryffindor way of thinking that things would only happen when one was ready for them.) That was indeed what he had done, and at points outside the gates he knew the Death Eaters would attack from, too. Or maybe he’d fled because of other, more emotional reasons. Inane ones. 

Either way, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t been useful. He was nothing if not useful.

So what was he now?

“Nothing.” He tested the word, how it felt on his tongue. He might as well get used to it.

He would not stay. That much had been decided from the moment he had watched the three leave the shack, the lion cubs who were no longer cubs. He had nothing left to offer this place, and there was nothing for him here. 

Except… 

Severus swore. Fawkes threw him a stern look, which he gave right back.

It was a sardonic smile he imagined the heavens would be wearing, gazing down on him then. Cruelly amused that the treasure had become the curse, the escape the prison. A prison in the form of blue eyes with pupils framed in amber, of a boy-like fringe and rough, worn hands. 

Surely he didn’t need to worry, he told himself. He had aimed to become nothing but the past of that man when he had last left the cottage that smelled of old wood without telling him anything out of the ordinary. _There is no way he wouldn’t resent me for all the things I did, or didn’t do. There would be nothing better than for him to get a good reason to forget everything._

He regretted seeking him out for the tenth time over. It would have all been so much easier otherwise.

 _Twenty more minutes,_ he promised himself. _He knows where I am. If he doesn’t come looking in twenty minutes, I will be gone. And Merlin forbid I think of him ever again._

He cast a “Tempus,” and shifted in his seat to wait. Five minutes later, Remus came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp that was a whole lotta brooding… It was kind of tricky figuring out how to write Severus’s train of thought, and I hope it all flowed well together :D Also, the bulk of the first three chapters were characters’ thoughts and feelings, so they were pretty slow on the action; from now on, chapters will be much more dialogue and action-centered.  
> I have finals starting next week, so I'm not exactly sure if I'll be able to update as scheduled. I'll try my absolute best, and I'll probably post an announcement on my Tumblr if there are any changes.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated :)
> 
> **On an unrelated note, I was interested for a long time in the difference between how Muggle and Wizarding wars are fought (I’ve never yet seen any meta regarding this, so if there are good analyses on this topic, I’d love to know!). I think that, because of spells such as the Stunning spell or the Incarcerous spell, killing enemy soldiers isn’t the only way to render them incapable of attacking, so there could be such a thing as ‘non-fatal warfare’ in the Wizarding world.
> 
> Of course, groups like the Death Eaters would mainly keep it more violent, but, judging by the fight in the Department of Mysteries and how Mad-Eye Moody “never killed if he could help it”, I would argue that the Hogwartians and Order members would mostly tilt towards using more non-fatal spells, and even Death Eaters might not always aim to kill (see: Bellatrix defeating Tonks in the Department of Mysteries but not killing her or even causing any lasting damage). Further, international statutes might even be in place to regulate or restrict the use of Unforgivables or otherwise fatal curses even during wars, so that non-fatal warfare would be more of a norm.
> 
> I mention all this because I will be implementing it (in a probably more subtle way) into the story later on, and I’d rather not have an infodump during the actual story. Besides, it’s highly unlikely that there would be anyone who participated in the Battle of Hogwarts while being a fish out of water when it comes to wartime laws or Wizarding war history.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter)
> 
> The hour of peace is nearing its end.

“Stay,” Remus breathed. “Stay.”

It was the only word he could form at the moment.

“Yes.”

Remus shuddered as the voice lifted a few stray hairs on his forehead. The hand resting on the small of his back let go to grasp at his shoulder instead, to pull him closer. But Remus had already seen the blood coating the floor, far fresher than anything he had ever done in this shack.

“What — what _happened,_ ” he said.

“The Dark Lord.” Severus reached up to his collar and pulled it down an inch. Remus spotted the bite marks and his mind short-circuited for a moment. (How many times had that been in his nightmares, waking up to find Severus bitten and damned beside him?) But the marks were healed and minimal, and they were made by teeth much thinner than wolf fangs. “His snake. Fawkes healed it.” He gestured towards Dumbledore’s magnificent phoenix.

Remus traced the scars with shaking hands. “Oh thank Merlin, thank heavens,” he said, touching the marks as if to make sure they would never burst open again. 

He cried then; he couldn’t quite help it. Severus wiped the tears from his cheeks.

“Why did he do it?” he whispered after a minute.

Severus seemed to ponder where to start.

“Do you know of the Elder Wand?” he said, slowly.

Remus frowned through his tears. “I don’t… I think I’ve heard about it, but I can’t… I don’t know.”

Severus took a pause again. Remus straightened himself from where he had been curled against him, and led him shakily to the tattered mattress as Severus began to explain. By the time he had finished not long after, Remus had laid them both down on it, then shot up to stare in shock into his face.

“ _What?_ ”

Severus nodded. Remus saw the depth in his eyes ebb away, a wall rising up.

“Don’t.” He shook him, and took his face in his hands. “Don’t do that. I don’t want you to do that. Ever again.”

He had been incredulously happy the first time Severus had done as he had told him. He’d felt that way for weeks afterwards, pleasantly shocked every time it happened. He wondered when he had stopped being surprised — when he had started getting used to it, perhaps taking it for granted — as he saw the emotion swirling back into Severus’s eyes and felt his heart soar like it had all those years ago. _He listened to me._

“Oh, Severus,” he said, stroking his cheeks, fingers moving down to his neck to softly rub at the scars again. “Severus, I’m _sorry_ , you must have been so scared, I’m so sorry.”

“What —” Severus muttered, then made a choking sound. Remus wordlessly wiped away his tears as his own continued to trail slowly down his face. He felt thin arms tentatively making their way around him, as if scared he might wriggle away if he noticed. He felt like sobbing openly, and instead wrapped his arms around the man and held on.

After a moment, the war returned to the forefront of his mind for the first time in little under an hour. A million questions were still burning inside him, and he wondered which one he ought to ask first. Was the hour nearly up by now? What were they to do afterwards?

Before he found the words, Severus spoke.

“I need to tell you something,” he said.

Remus lifted his head to search; to meet Severus’s eyes properly, he had to dislodge himself from his embrace. Where before Remus had been too shaken himself to piece out all of the emotions inside those black eyes, now he could identify several. He was hit with a sense of foreboding.

“What is it?”

Severus hesitated; Remus squeezed his hand, and dreaded.

“The thing I had to tell Harry Potter.”

 _Not ‘the information he had to disclose’, then,_ thought Remus. Over the years, he had noticed there were several indicators of Severus holding something back, and one of them was how he worded things. A flame of hope and relief licked his insides for the thousandth time that night.

Another pause followed, this time quite a long one. Remus realized that Severus needed the strength of his prompting to continue. “What was it, Severus?” He drew circles on the back of Severus’s pale hand, and didn’t break his gaze.

“Do you have trust in my… allegiance?”

Remus stared at him, and knew he’d have to spell it out for him. Talking to Severus was like that sometimes. 

“You told me to send Harry into the Shrieking Shack, where Voldemort was and you were to be,” he said. “I saw Harry, Ron and Hermione running to the Willow from all the way across the grounds and I didn’t stop them. And none of them died here. None of them were even _hurt_ here. I found you with Dumbledore’s phoenix by your side.” 

He peered into black eyes whose depths were endless, that were suddenly overbright. “I thought, not an hour ago, that I’d be a fool to trust you.” He said it slowly. “Now I know I’d be a fool not to.”

* * *

Neville Longbottom stood inside the Great Hall.

Minutes before, he had been subjected to a bone-crushing hug by his grandmother that had knocked the wind out of him. His grandmother had never hugged him like that before. He was still rubbing his right arm almost absently, as if to keep the warmth from escaping.

He had arranged spaces for makeshift beds and stretchers to be put in, and then stood over Madame Pomfrey and a small group of amateur healers as they tended to the wounded before being shooed away by the matron. Now he was looking around for something else he could do; anything, to be given an excuse to ignore the horrible twisting feeling inside.

“It’s very sad, isn’t it?”

He looked around at Luna, who had somehow (as she always did) walked up to him without a sound. Her blue eyes were roaming around the Hall, where the injured lay with their eyes pained and tired, and people crouched over the bodies of their loved ones.

Neville nodded. He marveled once again at how Luna always managed to just _say_ things like that. He wondered if that made it hurt any less.

“I would be devastated if Daddy died in battle. I was worried when I’d heard he’d disappeared, but I suppose disappearing isn’t so final.”

Neville didn’t know what to say to that either. Rumour had it that people had found copies of wanted posters of Harry in the destroyed and abandoned Lovegood residence, resized to fit on the cover of the Quibbler. He pursed his lips and did a half-shrug. Some distance away, the Weasleys were still huddled together, over the body of Fred. _Fred_. One of those figures that had, when he first entered Hogwarts, seemed like a fixture, as much as the age-old portraits on the walls or the ever-present Professor Binns.

“Hey, Neville, Luna,” called a voice. He turned to see Tonks, marching towards him with Oliver Wood in tow. She was more purposeful than he had ever seen her, though admittedly he had only seen her a few times before. Where the battle had reduced some to trembling shells, it seemed to have shaped her into something unshakeable.

“We need help carrying the injured and the dead inside the castle,” she said, when she reached them. “Neville, you go with Oliver; Luna, with me.”

“Yeah,” said Neville. Oliver nodded and beckoned, and he followed him out of the Hall, away from the stifled wails and pain-filled groans. As he approached the great double doors behind the Quidditch player, he was suddenly reminded of his first flying lesson, and hated himself for not being any less afraid now than he had been back then, back when Ron had told him he needed to stand up to people. Ron, with the freckles and the nose that wrinkled when he laughed, now hunched over his brother with his face covered in sweat and dirt and tears. Ron, who had backed him up at that first-year Quidditch match.

A million years ago.

* * *

Remus felt like his head might split open.

“He — he —”

“Yes.” Severus’s voice was low, but his grip on Remus’s robes were tight.

“He gave us _watch duty_ to make sure Harry was alright.” Remus’s voice was shaking. Anger of a kind he had never felt before threatened to burst from him. “He had him learn Occlumency, he sent him on a one-man mission, for — for —”

Severus said nothing. Remus saw fear surface from beneath the anguish in his face. He was struck once again by how well he knew the man, and how much it pained him to understand the source of that fear.

“It’s not your fault.” He clutched the side of Severus’s head in his hand, fingers threading through black hair. “You didn’t know.”

“No,” Severus conceded. “I didn’t.”

Remus moved his thumb back and forth through Severus’s hair, willing his own overwhelming anger and sadness away. Those feelings would accomplish nothing. They were in a war.

“So,” he said at last, “what do we do?”

“I’m not sure,” said Severus. “I don’t think I serve any real purpose now; like I said, once... Once it is done, the war will be over.”

Fawkes, who had been sitting beside Severus’s head and watching them, reached over and prodded the front of Severus’s robes with his beak. Severus flinched at the contact and looked around.

“What?”

Fawkes cocked his beautiful head. He was staring pointedly at Severus.

“It... it looks like he’s pointing towards the exit,” said Remus slowly, watching the bird.

“So — he’s telling me to get out of here, and do — what, exactly?”

Fawkes blinked, as if it should be obvious. It took Severus a few moments to respond. A split second before he did, Remus suddenly understood, the last puzzle piece of Dumbledore's plan, the old man who had been his hope and his shield, who had played all of them. He desperately wished he would be wrong, even as he heard Severus's next words.

“See… Him?”

Fawkes blinked again. _Yes_. Remus’s heart stopped.

“No.”

Severus looked round at him, and laid one of his hands on top of Remus’s. His gaze was growing firmer with new understanding, a purpose. “It makes sense. He’s weakened somehow. I can get to him — or at least, help.”

“I can’t — I _can’t_ .” Remus grabbed his robes as if Severus might evaporate away. He felt the warmth of the skin beneath the fabric and couldn’t breathe. _You might die. I can’t watch you die._

“We’ll stay together. We’ll keep ourselves hidden.” Severus’s voice shook, but he kept his gaze steady, grasping Remus’s hand in his. “You’ll stay with me.”

It took Remus a full minute to answer back. He clenched and unclenched his fist gripping the stiff black robes, made himself breathe as he attempted to steady himself, before he found the words. But then, of course, there was only one answer to give.

“I will,” he breathed.

* * *

Not too far from the Shack, a couple of Death Eaters stood hidden in the trees. They had lowered their hoods and stuffed their masks inside their robes, and were breathing in the night air, gazing at the half-demolished castle whose walls they had once thought to be eternal. If the wind had not been whistling so, they might have heard the soft sounds of trainers on undergrowth.

Harry Potter paused in front of the forest. He knew that time was short, knew what he had to do. He didn’t question it. Months later, it would occur to him that he had felt no hatred for Dumbledore that night, and how strange that was; after weeks upon weeks of mounting disillusionment he had suffered, this ought to have been the last straw. Weeks later still, he would realize that he had had no thought to spare for Dumbledore because he had been thinking of someone else.

There was no being sure in the darkness, but if another person had been under the Invisibility Cloak with him, they might have seen his eyes flicker towards the Whomping Willow.

Harry passed the two Death Eaters. Every footfall seemed to ring in his ears, and he noted what he was doing every time he blinked, or swung his arms forward, or adjusted his glasses. Halfway into the place where he knew Voldemort was, he stopped. Took out a snitch.

Three ghost-like apparitions followed Harry to the clearing, where dozens of Death Eaters stood in a sea of black, and Rubeus Hagrid stood roped to a tree. Harry remembered all the times he had been crushed under the weight of Hagrid’s hands patting his shoulder. Realized just how big he had thought Hagrid was, and how small he seemed now, as he sobbed out Harry’s name and begged him to run. He might have even wondered, for a split second, if perhaps he’d been seeing everything wrong the whole time. Just as wrong as he’d been about Snape.

Those kinds of thoughts aren’t very pleasant, especially if they’re your last ones.

The green light flashed, illuminating the crowd of masks behind the caster. A few minutes’ walk away, a phoenix tugged on a man’s sleeve, crying a note as if to say, “It’s time”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3
> 
> In this AU, Remus has an established relationship with Severus since sometime before the death of Dumbledore (I'm planning another fic that serves as a prequel to this one, where we'll learn exactly when), hence no mutual attraction with Tonks, which leads to neither of them dying, as Remus ends up chasing Severus during the fight and Tonks doesn't go looking for him.
> 
> I've been really busy studying for finals, and they only end early next week, so I don't think I'll be able to find time to write another chapter this week. So unfortunately, the next chapter won't be posted until two weeks later, probably the 28th of June (though I'll try my best to finish it earlier than that). Thanks again, everyone :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I couldn't post last week, this chapter's a bit longer than all the previous ones :) Enjoy!

“Harry Potter is dead.”

Lord Voldemort’s high-pitched, triumphant voice rang out over the Hogwarts grounds, seeped its way into the residences of Hogsmeade, reverberated inside the Great Hall. Two men stood just out of earshot of the raucous, celebratory crowd of the Death Eaters, covered with a strong joint Disillusionment Charm and holding their breaths. One of them lifted his head, to check that the large red-and-gold bird was still perched, half-hidden, in the trees behind the mob. The bird seemed to nod back, and the man kept his eyes fixed on it, if only to look away from Harry Potter’s body.

* * *

_“The battle is won. You have lost half your fighters. My Death Eaters outnumber you, and the Boy Who Lived is finished.”_

Inside the castle walls, Hermione Granger ran down half-destroyed marble staircases, tripping over the rubble several times. Once, she lost her footing entirely in her haste, and all but crashed to the stone floor six steps below. She paid the throbbing aches no mind. She was sobbing.

“Ron,” she muttered, almost hysterical, as she sprinted towards the Great Hall as fast as she could, even as the pain in her right leg seared. Voldemort’s voice rang in her ears, but she would not hear it. Lies, he was spouting lies, as he had always done. He was _lying._ “Ron, Harry. Harry, no, Ron…”

She stumbled several more times, ran through the open double doors of the Hall. It did not take her long to find Ron, still standing amidst his family, and when her eyes met his, she was hit with a desperate longing for everything to have been a dream.

Voldemort’s gloating speech was still echoing through the large hall, and everywhere she looked, she saw her own desperation mirrored in the faces around her. She wanted to see someone, anyone, looking unshaken, someone who could reassure her, tell her… Ron’s arms shook violently around her as he held her tight.

_“— and you will join me in the new world we shall build together.”_

In the ringing quiet that settled after the last terrible words were spoken, the fighters who had pledged their all, who had come to battle with rolled up sleeves and steely determination, now stood silent with the grip on their wands slack, glancing from face to bloodless face.

Was this the end of hope?

* * *

As the Dark Lord continued to speak, Severus Snape felt Remus’s head lift from where it had been buried into his chest, and looked around at him. The lined face he knew so well was contorted in a terrible rage and sorrow. Severus could tell he was gazing at the figure splayed on the ground, no doubt even smaller in death, though he still could not bring himself to look at Harry properly.

“Did you really lose half your fighters?” he muttered, his mind latching onto the speech. Even Voldemort’s words were a welcome distraction from everything, from the weight in his chest to his heart pounding in his throat.

“Our fighters,” corrected Remus sharply, before the anger in his eyes dissipated a bit, to be replaced with a fearful uncertainty. “And… I don’t know.”

_Half,_ thought Severus. His mind filled with the flickering faces of those he knew had stayed to fight in the castle. Half could mean half the students, or half of the staff. Of families. Ronald Weasley’s face loomed before him, scowling in mistrust; had it crossed that foolish boy’s mind that perhaps, just perhaps, it might mean something that all of his siblings had been in Severus’s care, and both his parents had sat with him in countless tedious Order meetings?

_‘Lost’ doesn’t mean dead. It could very well include plenty of people who simply can’t fight anymore. Even Death Eaters don’t kill every opponent, at least the ones who are remotely sane._

It was then that Remus tugged on his arm. His agonized expression had vanished, to be replaced with a look of stunned disbelief.

“What?” he muttered, when Remus continued to stare in the direction of Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Remus didn’t answer, but cast a magnifying charm on his wand and stared intently over its tip. Severus quickly glanced over at the place where Harry lay.

“What?” he repeated, impatiently. An inexplicable emotion was riling up inside him. He would not dare to hope. He couldn’t afford to hope.

“I can see a pulse in his neck.” Remus’s voice was flat, calm. He was squinting into the magnifying bubble his wand had produced.

“You —” Severus grabbed at Remus’s wand; Remus let him take it. He looked through the bubble himself, right at Harry. The boy's eyes were closed, the black hair framing his face as messy as ever, and the round glasses were a little askew. His neck was exposed. And Severus saw it too; a steadily beating pulse.

Harry was _alive_.

“Dumbledore,” he growled, barely registering what he was saying. “Damn him. _Damn_ him.”

“He’s alive,” said Remus, his suspicions confirmed by Severus’s reaction. He sounded close to tears. “He’s alive, oh sweet Merlin, he’s alive.”

“Why hasn’t anyone noticed?” Severus whispered urgently, even as he reached out to grasp Remus’s hand. The Death Eaters were standing tall in triumph, cackling and jeering, and the Dark Lord was waiting for the Hogwartians to come out of the castle, his speech over, pacing around Harry. If he looked closer, he might see the pulse beating clear as day, see that Harry was not dead at all. And then there was Hagrid, hunched over the boy with his face and beard grimy with dirt and tears; the half-giant had never been one for subtlety, and if he spotted it, alerted the Dark Lord and the mass of followers behind him… 

“I don’t know.” Remus looked equally worried, his eyes darting from Harry to the Dark Lord to the Death Eaters. They shared a look, and pulled each other closer.

“Does this mean he survived the Killing Curse again?” Severus said, almost to himself. That seemed to be the only plausible explanation. It would be so impossible that one could survive it twice that there was a chance the Dark Lord just might not consider it. _Did he pretend to drop dead?_ If he had, he either was an incredible actor or had known something Severus didn’t. _Probably the latter,_ Severus thought.

“They’re coming out of the castle,” said Remus suddenly, interrupting his frantic train of thought. Sure enough, the fighters of Hogwarts were spilling out onto the grounds and approaching the place where they stood. “Where should we be?”

“Somewhere between them,” suggested Severus. He tried not to show that he hadn’t the slightest idea. “But not smack in the middle.”

“Alright.” Remus maneuvered them both to the grass in front of where the rightmost Death Eaters were. 

“We should gather more fighters,” Severus said suddenly. The gloating, _‘You have lost half your fighters’_ , was still ringing inside his head.

“Who?”

“Anyone. The centaurs; they're still in the forests. Hogsmeade residents.” His eyes took in the people emerging from the castle. The crowd was dismally small. Even when Harry was revealed to have survived, they would not stand a chance.

“How?”

Severus had the answer without even knowing it. He looked up into the trees once more and searched for Fawkes; when he met eyes with him, the bird seemed to nod, though he was too far away for Severus to be sure. He then flew off down through the trees and disappeared from view, and Remus gasped softly as he understood. Severus grasped the worn fabric of Remus’s sleeve and felt the warmth there, and it anchored him.

They heard wails and screams as the crowd moved towards the Death Eaters, as their eyes fully adjusted to the darkness and the people at the front recognized the boy on the ground. He spotted Minerva McGonagall, and a weight in his chest seemed to lift, even as he saw her crying her dismay.

Remus conjured the magnifying bubble up again, as if the Hogwartians’ grief was counterevidence to Harry’s survival. Severus could identify several of the voices that rang out and clung, horribly, to the night air and, for a split second, couldn’t help but wonder if any of them would be half as devastated for him, if he had actually bled to death in that shack.

* * *

The world ground to a halt for the second time that night. Ron could hear his own labored breathing even over the shouts that rent the air around him. Hermione screamed next to him, as did Ginny on his other side; he might have shouted something too, but he wasn’t sure. Then they were silenced, and Ron’s mouth was magically sealed shut.

Individual Death Eaters were almost indistinguishable, the black-robed figures blending into the crowd around them, as if they were a single, enormous, unstoppable mass. Hopelessness like he had never felt, not even on that night when he had left Harry and Hermione, was writhing and screaming inside him. He had failed. He had not been able to do anything for anyone; Fred had died right in front of him, and Harry’s eyes had clouded over since Voldemort had demanded his sacrifice, and he had failed to stop anything from happening.

He had held portions of Voldemort’s soul in his hands, had worked towards nothing but the singular goal of dismantling his efforts for months on end, and now he realized that maybe those long weeks had blinded him. That he had not let himself consider that there was a chance they would not win. That his friends and family would end up dead, that all their fighting would have been for nothing.

And now Harry lay dead before him, the first friend he had ever made, who he had resented, at times, as much as loved, and he found himself utterly unprepared. He regretted everything, every moment he might have said something better, done something more. 

A newfound surge of fury was lapping up at his insides as well. _Snape._ He had something to do with this. _Snape. It was all an act. Like it had always been._ How could he have been so stupid?

Anger had always been more bearable than grief. He latched onto it, seethed at the many faces hidden in the darkness before him. Was Snape in the crowd, somewhere, welcomed back into the fold after delivering Harry to them? Had he crawled back to the master who had tried to have him killed?

“Harry Potter is dead!” cried Voldemort, and the words cut through him as deeply as if he’d heard them for the first time. The silencing spell cast over the crowd kept Ron’s mouth closed tight and made it hard to breathe. “Do you understand now, deluded ones? He was nothing, ever, but a boy who relied on others to sacrifice themselves for him!”

He might have even believed that once. After Diggory, after Sirius Black, after Amelia Bones and Emmeline Vance and Dumbledore, as the deaths had started to pile up and Harry had escaped every situation unscathed. Harry had been aimless in his leadership during the initial hunt for the Horcruxes, as if he believed something might turn up if only he wandered around long enough. As if he was nonchalant about the whole thing, while bodies continued to fall. And Ron, who had had to fight just to be seen his whole life, who had always been excruciatingly unremarkable, had watched his best friend blunder along with the hateful hole in his heart growing larger each day.

After he had settled in Shell Cottage, the hate fully transformed into an aching regret and fear, he had reflected on those thoughts he might have had those few weeks. Perhaps they had been lingering in the back of his mind for years without him noticing. He had sat through sleepless nights with his eyes rarely dry, and he had thought, _Is this how evil is made?_

“He beat you!” he yelled, pain ripping through him as he broke the spell cast over himself and all the others standing around him, and led the screaming and cursing that ensued. Because he thought he might understand now. Harry had always been ready to dive face-first into danger. Would have given his life for any one of them in a heartbeat.

_I’d give my life for his,_ Ron thought, as they were silenced yet again. _I’d tell him everything, the things I left out because I was ashamed, I would apologize again._

“He was killed while trying to sneak out of the castle grounds, killed while trying to save himself --”

_Liar._ Ron’s mouth had half-formed the word when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone breaking off from the crowd to his right. He watched as the figure charged straight towards Voldemort; he was alone, but he ran as if he had a hundred people behind him. As Voldemort knocked him down with ease and Disarmed him, Ron caught a glimpse of the man’s clothes in the dim light.

Neville.

* * *

“What —” Severus’s grip on Remus’s arm tightened.

“Who is that?” Remus breathed, squinting into the darkness at the man who had just charged at Voldemort before being knocked down.

Severus did not need to squint. He had unintentionally memorized that silhouette the past year, from all the nights he had seen the boy stirring up trouble and had had to covertly shield him from punishment. The most incompetent student in his Potions class.

“Neville Longbottom.”

"Neville?" said Remus, even as he seemed to recognize the figure on the ground.

They watched as the Dark Lord taunted the boy, suggested that he switch sides. Severus thought of Bellatrix Lestrange, and of the one time he had accidentally crossed paths with Frank Longbottom in St. Mungo’s. It had been his blank, half-mad face in his mind every time he had been hit with a Crucio since.

“I’ll join you when Hell freezes over!” Longbottom shouted. His call for Dumbledore’s Army was answered by a chorus of yells, and Remus sucked in a breath next to him.

“They’re going to kill him,” Remus breathed out. “What can we do?”

The odds were too far against them, Severus could see that with only a glimpse. The Death Eaters outnumbered all the Hogwarts fighters by at least three to one, let alone the two of them. He threw a glance towards where Fawkes had sat before flying off; the treetops were empty. “We’d accomplish nothing.”

“We could at least… move him out of the way.” Even as he said it, Severus could feel Remus deflating. The same helplessness he’d felt so many times before rose up inside him again.

He said nothing. The sea of Death Eaters standing behind and around the Dark Lord and Neville Longbottom was answer enough.

They watched as the Dark Lord summoned the Sorting Hat. Severus, who knew the things the Dark Lord liked to do with his victims who did not deserve a clean death, had half-expected what was to come. Remus, who apparently had not, let in a sharp shuddering breath as Neville Longbottom burst into flames. Severus let go of his grip on Remus’s sleeve to wrap his arm around his chest, mutely acknowledging his ragged breathing.

“Harry’s going to move,” said Remus, after a few seconds. Indeed, Severus could just see Harry’s body tensing, as if he was about to get up.

_Stay down_ , he urged him silently. _What could you do?_

But of course Harry would try to save Longbottom. He would get up and relinquish Longbottom from his Body-Bind, and then he would truly meet his death. _Don’t move. Don’t get up, you’re going to die._

And then a roar of sound came from behind him. The pair of them jumped and looked around at the castle gates, and saw hundreds of people running onto the grounds. And Hagrid’s half brother was stumbling towards them, and arrows from centaurs showered over the Death Eaters as they yelled and scattered. 

As Severus pulled Remus out of the way so as not to get trampled by the oncoming swarm of people, he saw Longbottom breaking the Body-Bind that had been cast on him. He watched as the hands that were no longer on fire pulled out a long sword and slashed at the large snake that had been coiled beside the Dark Lord.

_“There will come a time when Lord Voldemort will seem to fear for the life of his snake.”_ It was Dumbledore's voice Severus heard as he saw Nagini’s head come clean off, and the expression on the Dark Lord’s face as he screamed betrayed a primal fear Severus had not once seen cross his face before.

Harry, who he had tried to keep his eye on amid the chaos, had suddenly disappeared. He had opened his eyes and made a move for his pockets one second, then was gone the next. _The Invisibility Cloak._ Severus could only hope that he would stay under it until it was wise to show himself.

He glanced up at the sky, relief like he had never known washing over him. High above them, where no one but he and Remus thought to look, Fawkes was circling the sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you could probably tell, Voldemort's speeches (plus Ron's "He beat you") are taken straight from the book.
> 
> I'd always been kind of puzzled at how and why all the backup arrives at once, when the villagers and families come from outside Hogwarts and the centaurs come from the forest. The arrival of this massive amount of backup itself also feels like a not really explained deus ex machina, when we don't really see anyone rallying people to help fight in the battle before it happens. So Fawkes gets to do his thing here.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Comments are always welcome, and thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+Luna Lovegood)
> 
> The war nears a close.

“Into the castle!” someone shouted.

Severus had a stray thought that that was quite rich of them, when he couldn’t even _see_ the castle, past the tangle of black-robed bodies and the stampede of incoming fighters. He held on to Remus’s hand as they attempted to maneuver themselves out of the fray.

“We can Disapparate!” Remus shouted into his ear. “Hold on —”

He tightened his grip, and their hands moved in a long-practiced motion to lock their fingers together. The sheer familiarity disoriented him for a moment, before Remus twisted beside him.

Being pressed on from all sides, he became painfully aware of the remainder of the shields that had once firmly protected the Hogwarts grounds. It felt like he was being slammed against a thick rubbery wall, and it was taking longer than usual to come out on the other side. 

Just as he felt the squeezing pressure leaving him and he tried to catch a breath, he felt a jerk on his navel and was sucked back into the vacuum of unintelligible shapes. Remus, who had started to loosen his grip on Severus’s fingers, frantically grabbed hold of him again. _What’s going on?_ He abruptly remembered the tale of how Yaxley had almost caught Harry and his two companions by grabbing onto them as they Disapparated from the Ministry. _But we’re still invisible._

Then they landed, so suddenly that both of them nearly lost their footing. Severus whipped his wand out — and then realized where he was.

“Your office,” said Remus. “Your old office.” He looked confused. “I was trying to get us into the Great Hall. Did you bring us here?”

“No,” said Severus. His eyes scanned the dark room, looking for the thing that had tugged on the neck of his robes. There was no one there.

Then a burst of flame lit up the office in a splatter of red and yellow light. Remus jumped back, and Severus cursed in surprise. He had just enough time to think, Fawkes, before a red-and-gold feather appeared in front of him, and a voice spoke. For a second, Severus did not quite register the words that were being said to him; he had not heard that voice in so long, it almost hurt.

“Severus, as no doubt you will know by now, you must go forth to face Lord Voldemort. But it is not your job to fight him; that, I say with confidence, will be taken care of by Harry. What _you_ must do is to face him openly. You must tell him the truth and end your role as a faithful Death Eater. You must let him see. Let him see everything you have done.”

As Albus Dumbledore’s voice finished talking, the feather that had been hovering in midair swirled into itself and vanished again.

“What…” Remus sounded as muddled as he felt. “Why?” he said, after a pause.

Severus did not know. He had never known half of what Albus Dumbledore had intended with his plans even when he was told of them. “We don’t have enough time to wonder,” he said. He had followed along until this moment. He might as well keep going.

* * *

Three floors above, chaos reigned.

Luna Lovegood dodged around house elves waving giant cleavers and kitchen knives, ducked and dodged away from bursts of light. Everywhere she looked, she saw faces of allies. The black robes of the Death Eaters were mere dots in the mass of backup that had inexplicably arrived.

She had always been quick on her feet, if nothing else. She ran through the fighting crowd, searching for an opponent. Death Eaters were being thrown to the ground, people were bellowing their anger and triumph, and centaurs’ hooves were drumming on the stone floor, creating a thundering rhythm that seemed to shake the castle.

She spotted two people with fair hair as she ran, and she slowed for a better look. They were both in black robes, and when she saw their faces, she recognized them as the parents of Draco Malfoy. But they did not have wands in their hands, and they were crying out for their son, not trying to join the fight. _I hope they find him,_ she thought, passing them behind.

As she neared the center of the Great Hall, she saw that there was a large clearing forming in the middle of it, and dashed straight towards it. _Ginny,_ she realized, as she grew closer and saw the long, red hair. She threw her own spell into the mix as she succeeded in pushing through people and joined in the duel with who she recognized as Bellatrix Lestrange.

 _This is the woman that lost Neville a childhood._ Hermione shouted next to her as she fought to maintain her aim. Once, she nearly hit Ginny with her spell, as she suddenly passed in front of her. They battled on with all their might, but Bellatrix Lestrange did not falter. She was cackling.

Luna’s wand arm was aching and heavy, and she nearly tripped over her own feet as she ducked under green light, light that had shot straight at where her face had been a second ago. _That could have hit someone,_ she thought suddenly. Her heart was pounding traitorously in her chest. _They wouldn’t deserve that_ — _I shouldn’t have ducked. That spell was meant for_ me _._

And then she was shoved out of the way roughly, and a red-haired woman obscured Bellatrix Lestrange from view. She shouted something as she took over from the three of them, but Luna was still in too much of a daze to hear. All she could think about was the spell that had missed her.

She turned her head to look back at the crowd of people that had formed a ring. _Like they’re spectators,_ Luna thought. _And we’re the performers._ She had always liked putting on performances, mostly for her parents’ enjoyment.

She saw no one in the front lying dead, and as she swept her gaze across the onlookers, she saw Neville. His face was covered in sweat and dirt and blood, but when he met eyes with Luna, relief surfaced from beneath the fear in his face. _He wouldn’t look at me like that if I had just made someone die._ Her hearing seemed to come back to her, and her breath steadied.

“You — will — never — touch — our — children — again!”

The two women were yelling and screeching, dancing around each other, and Luna felt the floor tremble as cracks continued to form on the ground beneath them. She watched as they shot spell after spell at each other. Ginny was also watching, her wand still half-raised and her eyes wide, and Luna wanted to tell her to look away. In a flash, she saw her own mother’s beautiful eyes widening in panic, right before the work bench had blasted apart into a million little flakes, and everything beautiful in Luna’s life had died with her.

And then a green light from Ginny’s mother’s wand hit Bellatrix Lestrange square in the chest. Luna remembered seeing Sirius Black being hit by a spell like that, and him falling through the mysteriously familiar veil, and Harry, crying and screaming. And now Lord Voldemort screamed as Bellatrix Lestrange fell.

 _But he doesn’t feel sad for her,_ Luna realized. And no one else cried their dismay at Bellatrix’s death. _I would feel terrible if no one was sad that I died._

Then a split second — Ginny let out a strangled shout — and Luna came back to reality just in time to see Lord Voldemort, pointing his wand straight at Ginny’s mother. _Look away,_ she wanted to say, even as she raised her wand instinctively to point towards him, but the words were stuck in her throat. _It would be terribly bad manners to tell someone what to do, especially with their family. Even if I know they’ll regret it later._

“Protego!”

The shield charm was so strong that it knocked both Mrs. Weasley and Lord Voldemort off their feet. Luna watched, frozen in place, as a person materialized right before her eyes, his wand raised, his black robes billowing out as the Disillusionment Charm on them lifted. _I’ve never seen him trembling like that before,_ she thought. _I wonder what’s wrong._

* * *

The hall gasped collectively — or so they would say, later. All that Severus registered was a muffled jumble of sounds, faded out of his focus. He was staring into red, snake-like eyes, and his mind had slammed shut to prevent invasion almost instinctively.

_“Let him see.”_

He could see the Dark Lord’s eyes, widened and frozen in shock, but he knew he would recover within seconds. It was now or never. Wand still poised and eyes starting to sting from keeping himself from blinking, he let go. He collapsed all his gates and shields and walls one after the other, and felt memories and emotions spilling out and swirling into one another until they became a whirr of incomprehensible background noise.

_Is this what minds feel like?_ He thought. He couldn’t quite remember. He also couldn’t seem to find his voice.

“It seems you have thwarted death,” said the Dark Lord. As Severus had expected, his shocked expression had quickly vanished to be replaced by a look of forced pleasure bordering on cool indifference. “A significant feat. And I have defeated Harry Potter even without full possession of the Wand. But no matter, for you have voluntarily come to help me yet again.”

His voice echoed throughout the hall tauntingly, and his thin mouth twisted into a grotesque smile.

“Did you seek _revenge_ , Severus?” he continued, silkily. “You know as well as I that such a thing would be impossible, even for a wizard as skilled as yourself.”

Severus’s voice returned to him at last. “Then why is it that you tried to have me killed?” His tone was flat, perhaps even a bit sarcastic, and the Dark Lord’s nostrils flared.

He had thought that he would be frightened, despite knowing how this would end, even at the moment he had cast the Shield Charm. Now, he only felt anger, and it fuelled him. The Dark Lord hadn’t looked into his mind yet — he would have to buy enough time for him to do so.

The Dark Lord himself let out a forced laugh that echoed throughout the hall. “You dare suggest that I felt I was _threatened_ by a measly bit of half-blood filth? When did you gain such pitiful arrogance, Severus?”

 _Pitiful arrogance_ , thought Severus, as he opened his mind even wider, inviting the Dark Lord into the swirling, disorganized, messy space. _That’s what it was, isn’t it? The desperate attempts to make something of myself. It’s what made me take the Mark._ It was a relief he had left that behind long ago, then. He felt the Dark Lord’s presence inside his head, and he started pushing memories forward; it was a rather difficult thing to do when his mind was so cluttered.

He was looking on as Harry prepared to dive into the lake for the Sword of Gryffindor — he was telling the Death Eaters’ plans to attack to the Order, leaving no small detail out — he was in Grimmauld Place, alerting those inside to Harry’s disappearance — 

_“I do not want to do it.”_ He was in Dumbledore’s office, stuck in limbo, pleading for perhaps the hundredth time.

_“You have expressed that sentiment often enough now, Severus. We agreed on the manner of my death, and I have already told you why it is you that must kill me. I do not wish to discuss it further.”_

“No!”

Voldemort let out a strangled cry, as he pulled so abruptly out of Severus’s thoughts that it hurt. Severus blinked to clear his head, and met eyes with the man he had once pledged loyalty to, who had seemed so impossibly powerful, and who he had been able to play like a fiddle after all.

“You —” Severus was rather surprised as Voldemort stumbled over his words. He had only ever seen him perfectly eloquent, as if he were reciting a practiced speech.

He raised his eyebrows. He had never claimed to be above the act of goading.

“ _When,_ ” shouted Voldemort, the hand holding the Elder Wand trembling in fury, “When have you started conspiring against me?”

The background noise around them that had quieted somewhat started up again in a collective murmur that pounded on Severus’s eardrums. He thought of the Malfoys, of Minerva, of Neville Longbottom.

“Since fall of… 1980, I believe.” He stretched the words out. He had always done that in order to sound more nonchalant than he was actually feeling; Minerva had had a few good laughs about the habit. “I would show you proof of that, My Lord, if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t have those particular memories on my person at the moment.”

Voldemort’s face was now a mix of rage and confusion, but he had not quite started to ask whatever question he had had, before a much louder burst of sound than before filled the hall.

Knowing what had just happened, Severus backed away from Voldemort, his eyes searching. It did not take him long to spot it. Harry Potter had just whipped off his Invisibility Cloak, Remus standing close behind him.

* * *

The whole hall was frozen in time as Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort circled each other, soaked up every word they spoke into the dead silence. Later, some would claim that they knew how it would end from the moment Harry Potter had appeared, suddenly, miraculously alive. Some would go so far as to say that they knew all along that Severus Snape had indeed been working for the Light this whole time.

Of course, people always say things. Perhaps that’s the point. Why do we do anything, if not to have it recalled with words afterwards?

In actuality, the only thing anyone in that Hall knew in that moment, except for three wizards, was a breath-catching fear. It was the culmination of all their efforts, and they were terribly afraid, and yet they could not quite bring themselves to look away.

Except, perhaps, for one seventeen-year-old girl, with dirty blond hair and wide blue eyes that could see more than most, and who had always been grateful that no one else seemed to know her. Because that would have meant they had gone through the same thing, too. As the rising sun hit the windows with a dazzling light, and the two wizards facing each other raised their wands simultaneously, Luna Lovegood turned her face away.

Then the crowd burst into cheers, and Luna was pushed forwards by people, their eyes brimming over with shocked tears, all running towards Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, still standing tall.

She would look back on this moment many times, and would always remember her mother again, and how she had wished and wished for years on end that she would one day come back alive. Just as Harry had done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first time writing original dialogue for Voldemort, and I gotta say it's really fun. We also read Luna’s inner thoughts a lot, because I see her as one of those people whose inside voices are so loud that they often have trouble focusing on the outside world. She definitely wanders off into her own thoughts a lot in canon, so I tried to show that in her POV.
> 
> So the Second Wizarding War is finally over, whew. But the fic's not quite over yet; we'll be going through the aftermath of the war as well. This is in large part because of Severus and Remus (we haven't really had much time for these two), but also because I feel that, unlike with characters that died earlier on in the books (like Cedric or Sirius), there's no real coming-to-terms or slow grieving scenes for people like Fred and I wanted explore that more.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are always appreciated, thanks so much for reading, and I'll see you in the next chapter!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+ Harry Potter)
> 
> The castle is a smaller place than one might expect.

It was a grave mistake not to have backed out of the center ring when he could have, Remus realized, as the deafening roar of voices filled the hall up to the brim and he had only a moment to prepare for the incoming stampede. He attempted to push past the swell of people rushing in from all sides as he looked around frantically.

Someone caught his sleeve from behind and he turned quickly, or as quickly as he could in the midst of all the people pressing into him as they struggled to reach the center of the circle.

“Severus,” he said, when he spotted who had hold of him, though he highly doubted Severus could actually hear him. He reached out to grip his arm in turn, fingers clutching tightly at the coarse black fabric and pulling himself closer. Their arms holding each other folded so they stood closer together as they waited for the last of the crowd to move away from them towards Harry.

They then turned their heads toward where the people were now milling around. Harry was lost behind hundreds of bodies.

“Do you think we should go too?” Remus peered into the crowd and then into Severus’s face. He knew the answer already, but he’d always tried to balance them out as a unit.

“No,” said Severus. “Not now.” He was looking into the swarm of people as well.

They stood there for a moment, morning sunlight streaming onto their faces and making them squint slightly. The sounds in the Hall were as loud as ever. Some people were cheering and sobbing and jumping about; others stood as they did, silent and still, faces a mix of disbelief and sorrow, relief and exhaustion. Others still had slumped down onto the ground in a heap, some with faces buried in their hands and arms.

Remus himself found that he could not feel anything at the moment. He was numb and exhausted. His mind had quieted down completely, except for the awareness of his right arm, linked tightly with Severus’s left. He squeezed slightly, as if to check that everything was real.

Then Severus suddenly shifted beside him, and Remus turned to look at him even as he followed him away from the crowd. Following Severus’s gaze, he saw that someone had detached themselves from the mob and seemed to have spotted them. _She must have been looking for him,_ Remus realized, as Severus led him towards the huge open double doors. As they passed through them, Remus threw one last glance back into the Great Hall, where Minerva McGonagall still stood, a little apart from the crowd; he was too far away to be sure, but he thought his eyes might have met hers. He turned away.

Severus was silent for a full minute as they climbed marble staircases with extra care, stepping over the fallen rocks and pointing out the parts where the steps had started to crumble.

“No, don’t — damn,” said Severus under his breath, as the staircase rumbled and began to move.

There was another moment while they waited for the staircase to stop. Remus knew Severus must know what he wanted to ask. He always seemed to know things like that, though sometimes he pretended he didn’t. Finally he turned to face him. Their eyes met.

“I didn’t want to — not now,” said Severus in a low voice.

“But you will? Later?” Remus remembered Minerva’s shock at Harry’s revelation the night Dumbledore had died, and how she had stayed almost silent through the full recapping of events, the tirade of insults and insinuations that had followed.

Severus paused. “Later,” he said after a moment. “When… When I’ve processed it.”

Remus nodded. Didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.

“Where are we going?” They had reached the upper landing, and their hands had slid down their arms to hold each other tightly. Remus moved his thumb over to the place on Severus’s wrist where he could feel the pulse steadily beating. His heart lightened. _It really has been a long time._

“The headmaster’s office.” Remus had somewhat recognized the path by now as well.

_Why?_ He started to ask, and then he thought of what must be there. “Oh,” he said instead. The sound came out a bit more clueless than he’d intended.

Severus chuckled under his breath. The sound was so impossible that Remus felt his heart still. He felt his chest constricting, a lump in his throat. He had forgotten what that had sounded like. What that had felt like. He _had_ forgotten Severus after all.

And he stopped walking, and grabbed Severus’s other arm, right there in the middle of the long corridor. He might have said something, or maybe he let out a sob; he couldn’t really tell. He barely registered Severus’s sound of surprise as he pulled at him, suddenly desperate. And if Remus himself who was crying while they kissed, or if it had been Severus, or perhaps both of them, Remus would never be entirely sure.

* * *

Harry felt like he was drowning in a sea of faces; some he knew, others he had never seen before, but they were all looking to him, reaching for him. He was almost lifted up off the ground as people pressed in from all sides, attempting to get closer to him.

After a few minutes of struggling, the people in the crowd, if not exactly dispersing, lessened their frantic attempts to get to him. He was stuck, instead, with individuals or families, expressing their gratitude and grief. People he did not know were telling him of their loved ones who had died in the war, and he had no idea what to say to them. After a few minutes, it felt like he had become a malfunctioning answering machine.

Then he managed to catch Ron and Hermione, who had been lingering in the background for a while now. There were tear tracks on Hermione’s face, and she started sobbing again as she flung her arms around him.

“Reckon we’ll be staying here a few hours, then,” said Ron. His voice sounded thick and hollow at the same time, as though he was still going through the process of getting it to work properly.

“Yeah.” Harry squeezed Hermione in a tight hug in turn and patted her on the back. He spotted people still milling about, waiting for a chance to talk to him. And then, another familiar face.

“Luna.”

“Hello, Harry.” Luna Lovegood, looking as contemplative and dreamy as the first time he had met her, sauntered up to them in a manner that suggested that she wasn’t entirely in control of where her feet ended up taking her. She exchanged greetings with Ron and Hermione, smiling.

When she got closer to them, she lowered her voice to say, “I’d welcome a moment alone, if I were you.”

“I’d love one,” said Harry hesitantly, eyeing the unfamiliar faces wearily. “But we’d have to —” he waved vaguely around them.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Luna. “We’ll take care of it.”

Harry could tell that, by ‘we’, she meant Dumbledore’s Army. After a moment, he nodded.

“Look, over there, a Blibbering Humdinger!” said Luna, pointing upwards, in a louder voice than Harry had ever heard her speak before.

People in the vicinity turned to squint towards where she had pointed. Then, seeing nothing, some of them then took a proper look at who had spoken.

“What’s a Blibbering Humdigger?” someone asked. It was clear that, under normal circumstances, they would have never asked such a ridiculous question. But everyone in earshot now seemed to listen for the answer. They had fought a war inside a crumbling school they had once thought unbreakable, and the loved ones of their loved ones lay dead around them. Who wouldn’t welcome a distraction now, if only for a moment?

Harry faintly heard Luna correct them, “Blibbering Hum _dinger,_ ” in a voice of endless patience, before he moved fully out of earshot under the Invisibility Cloak. If someone had been under it with him, they might have seen him smile. Luna had always managed to do that, somehow. Ron and Hermione moved close behind him, Hermione surreptitiously gripping the fabric of the cloak with her fingers.

As they made their way towards the hall entrance, they had to veer away from less and less people. Harry looked back at the place he had finished his latest duel. Voldemort’s body still lay where it had fallen. A shell of the impossibly powerful wizard that he had been. Harry had a vague thought that someone should probably move it.

As if echoing his thoughts, Ron said, “They should move Voldemort’s body.” His voice was rough, and Harry thought of Fred.

They moved out of the double doors, and up debris-strewn staircases. “Should we feel happy?” said Hermione, in a small voice, as they sidestepped fallen statues. “I mean, we’ve worked toward this for months — for years, but… But I don’t feel…”

“I don’t, either,” said Harry. “Not yet, anyway.”

The rest of the castle was silent and empty, but for a few portraits on the walls. Harry deemed it safe enough to slip the Invisibility Cloak off himself. He stowed it in his back pocket, and felt Ron laying his hand on his shoulder. 

“So,” said Ron slowly. “Snape.”

“I know,” said Hermione. “I thought, when you — when you — back at the forest, I thought it had been because of Snape.”

“Well,” Harry wondered where to begin. The Pensieve seemed a million miles away, and viewing the memories felt like some strange dream. “It was, and it wasn’t.”

“You got to give us more than that,” said Ron, after a few seconds.

“Yeah,” said Harry, and he started to explain. As he spoke, Hermione herded both of them into an empty classroom and locked the door. About halfway through his rundown of what had happened in his vision of King’s Cross, Hermione said, “Well, does that all mean Dumbledore knew you were going to survive?”

“I dunno.”

“Didn’t you ask him?” said Ron. “When, you know, when you met him?”

“No, I didn’t.” 

Neither Ron nor Hermione asked why. Harry was glad for that; he wasn’t entirely sure himself. Perhaps he _was_ as blindly believing as Aberforth had insinuated.

“And the Deathly Hallows?” Hermione said. “Did you ask Dumbledore about them?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I collected all three of them.” He patted his back pocket where he had put his Cloak, and said, “Like I said, the Resurrection Stone was inside the snitch.”

“And to think we carried that thing along the whole time,” said Ron, “not even knowing.”

“Okay, now let me finish, alright?” said Harry. He waited until they nodded, and told them about the other things Dumbledore had said, about waking up in the forest, about Narcissa Malfoy’s lie.

“She lied to Voldemort’s face?” gasped Hermione. “That must mean she’s a really skilled Occlumens.”

“Mate, if she’d told the truth —” Ron’s voice was a bit shaky, and he did not squirm away from Hermione reaching towards him, squeezing his hand.

“I dunno,” said Harry again. “But maybe I wouldn’t have been hurt again either way. Like I said, I did what my mother did, there in the forest. And I couldn’t even feel it when Voldemort used the Cruciatus on me.”

They were silent for a few moments. Then Hermione spoke up.

“When Snape appeared like that,” she said, “it was — we were all so shocked.”

“I had Remus under the cloak with me,” said Harry. “When we were moving into the Great Hall. He found me, somehow, and told me what Snape was going to do.”

“What?” said Hermione. “How did he know you were alive?”

“Didn’t ask,” said Harry. “I didn’t have the time.”

“And how did he know what Snape was going to do?” said Ron, frowning.

“I don’t know that, either,” said Harry. And then he remembered the brief flashes in between the scenes that he had barely caught a glimpse of. He hadn’t been able to make any sense of them before, but for the fact that they were all of one person. Remus in Gryffindor robes, and then in Muggle clothing, sitting in a playground Harry recognized. Remus in his shabby teacher’s robes, smiling widely in the teachers’ lounge, and then looking anxious in an Order meeting —

He was aware of Ron and Hermione looking at him. “I think,” he said slowly, “I think he might have had — something going on with Snape.”

There was a blank silence for a few seconds, while Ron and Hermione gaped at him.

“How do you know _that_?” said Hermione. Harry quickly recapped all the short moments in Snape’s memory he had seen.

“At the very least,” said Harry, “he must have been working with him. Or in contact with him, somehow.”

“Lupin wasn’t down in the Great Hall during the armistice,” said Ron suddenly. “D’you reckon… ”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Maybe.”

“Dumbledore would know,” said Hermione. “Wouldn’t he?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Dumbledore?” said Ron. “How will we be able to ask — oh,” he finished.

“Should we go, then?” said Harry, as he made to stand up.

“Might as well,” said Ron, standing as well. Hermione swiped the dust off herself as she rose, and they moved out of the classroom together.

The halls were still empty. A few portraits called out to them as they passed, asking them what had happened.

“Ask your mates!” Ron called back as they rounded a corner and moved out of earshot.

After a few minutes, they reached the headmaster’s office. The stone gargoyle was tipped over onto its side, and had dropped all pretense of being lifeless. It was stirring feebly and blinking dust out of its eyes. 

“Can we go up?” Ron asked.

“Do what you want,” it said in a wheezing voice.

“Cheers.” Ron pushed the heavy door open, and closed it behind them once they were all through.

“Can you hear that?” said Hermione. Harry listened. He heard the faint sound of voices coming from the office, growing louder as they moved up the moving spiraling staircase.

“Could be the portraits,” he said. As they stepped off the staircase onto the landing, they distinctly heard the voice of Albus Dumbledore.

“Ah,” he was saying. “It seems we have guests. Severus, if you could kindly open the door for them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's a bit of a cliffhanger. I originally intended to write Severus and Harry's meetup into this chapter, but I figured that would make it a bit too long compared to all the other chapters, so I'm saving it for chapter 8.
> 
> As I've said before, I wanted to make the aftermath of the war more detailed than it is in the original books. We mostly hear about everything that happens after Harry defeats Voldemort, but I wanted to explore it more in depth from many viewpoints. (So that means — you guessed it — even more POV characters.) This part serves as the setup. You might have also noticed that it's a bit different from canon, because Harry moves out of the hall way earlier than he does in the books.
> 
> I'll stop my rambling there for now. As always, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape
> 
> Before Harry interrupted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is at last! I apologize for the late update; I hope you enjoy the read <3

When they entered the Headmaster’s office, Remus pushing open the door and Severus following close behind him — they found most of the portraits on the walls empty of their occupants. No doubt they’d gone off to hear gossip and spread word, Severus thought. Throughout the last year, he had sometimes wondered if he would become as vain and talkative as all those other portraits were, once he died; then he’d realize that probably no one would let his portrait hang in Hogwarts anyway.

And now, he was back, not as a painting, but in the flesh.

A few people were there, all looking rather disheveled, as if they’d only just come in to converge in the office after running around to follow the action. All, Severus noticed, but one.

Albus Dumbledore gazed at him through half-moon spectacles that, as he lifted his head, reflected some warm yellowish light invisible to Severus. They briefly shielded the electric-blue eyes from view, and countless memories of the old headmaster pushing his glasses up his slender nose came to mind.

The portraits around the walls were silent, watchful. Out of the corner of his eye, Severus spotted one of them move as if about to say something — then a stout witch next to her reached across their frames and elbowed her. Remus had stepped aside and he could feel his eyes on him; then he realized that their fingers were still entwined.

Dumbledore looked down at their linked hands, and his eyebrows were slightly raised, as if mildly curious. But he did not comment on it. Severus had not really expected him to; it would be like Dumbledore to put two and two together himself, even without the latter two present.

“Severus,” he said. And suddenly, Severus did not want to hear whatever he was going to say next.

“The job is done,” he said curtly; perhaps more sharply than he had intended.

“I know it is, my boy,” said Dumbledore. His eyes were twinkling, though not with their usual mischief, and he smiled in a way that made Severus’s throat burn.

_ Of course you do. _ He didn’t know what to say next. Beside him, Remus shifted, and he remembered what he had told him about Dumbledore’s plans. He glanced over, and he saw anger and sadness and disillusionment swimming in Remus’s eyes. Remus had never been one to be able to hide his thoughts well; thank God werewolves were immune to Legilimency.

Then he remembered why he had wanted to come here. It seemed inane, inconsequential, compared to the war.  _ But the war is over. _ The impossible truth seemed to swell up inside him. _ I’m allowed to be curious about inconsequential things. _

“Why…” He paused, started again. “Why did Fawkes come to me?”

As if answering a call, there was a sudden whisper of birdsong from above. He looked up to see Fawkes circling down the high-ceilinged office before landing gracefully on Severus’s shoulder. He didn’t try to push it away this time. Now he was able to fully appreciate how light the bird felt, despite its size.

Dumbledore himself looked over at Fawkes before he spoke. “But you must fill me in on the details first, Severus,” he said.

They gazed at each other for a moment. “I think you already know the details, Dumbledore,” Severus said at last. He couldn’t keep the coolness out of his voice; he could feel Remus still watching him.

Dumbledore’s eyes crinkled as they did when he was about to chuckle, but the blue of his eyes looked somewhat blurred, and not because of his glasses this time.

“You overestimate my capabilities,” he said. “Though I do have a general idea of what happened,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Did you plan the note before or after your death?” said Severus, remembering the voice that had rung out in his old office. Fawkes cawed softly from his perch on his shoulder. He saw the other portraits share glances with each other curiously. Quite a few more people had slunk into their respective frames since they had entered.

Dumbledore looked contemplative, his chin resting lightly on his linked hands. “After, to be precise. The plan to send Fawkes to you was made before my death, but even I could not have guessed exactly what would occur.”

Severus mulled it over in his head for a second. He couldn’t look away from Dumbledore’s watering eyes, but he had wanted truthfulness from him for so long. “You are being honest with me?” he said. He had collapsed his shields back at the Great Hall, and now he hated his voice for shaking.

He had half-expected Dumbledore to raise his eyebrows again, deny the need for such a question. But he merely blinked before saying, “Yes, my dear boy. And I shall answer your questions with truth. You have deserved that much since long ago.”

Remus’s grip on his hand tightened; Severus squeezed in turn, feeling the warm, worn hand in his.

“Why was Fawkes sent to me?” he asked again.

There was a tear running down Dumbledore’s cheek now, from when he had blinked a moment before. “I had feared,” he started, “that after Lord Voldemort knew of the nature of the wand I’d possessed at the moment of my death—”

“The Elder Wand?” said Remus, sharply. “So it’s real, then? Its powers are real?” Severus didn’t think he’d ever heard him talk to the old headmaster in that tone; he gripped his hand tightly again and moved closer to him.

“Yes, Remus,” said Dumbledore, without missing a beat. He turned his head slightly to meet Remus’s eyes. “It is very much real. And I was the true owner of it before my passing.”

He paused as if waiting for any further questions, but Remus merely nodded mutely. He then looked back to Severus and continued.

“After Lord Voldemort had found out about the Elder Wand, I feared he might think that you were its true owner now, that you had won it from me by defeating me.”

_ And you didn’t think to tell me this?  _ The question stuck in the back of his throat. He willed himself to stay silent.

“Though, as you may know, that was not the case.” Dumbledore sighed. “I originally intended for the wand’s more extraordinary powers to die with me. Of course, I did not anticipate young Draco to get there before you. However, as I knew of Lord Voldemort being willfully ignorant of, among other things, wandlore, I believed he might take the definition of ‘defeat’ too seriously, and think in terms of the wizard rather than the wand.

“So, if Voldemort were to indeed believe that you had become the master of the Elder Wand, I knew he would not let it stand. And so, I feared for your life, my boy.” Dumbledore gazed up at him. He had made no effort to wipe any of his tears, in spite of his readily available long sleeves. “After my death, I of course planned for Fawkes to keep an eye out in case Lord Voldemort did manage to properly deduce the wand’s true allegiance, in which case he would have been sent to protect Draco instead of you. But... first guesses are the most accurate, as they say.”

There was another pause.

“So,” said Severus slowly, “you sent Fawkes to save my life.” He wasn’t sure if he was asking or stating.

“Yes, that was the reason,” said Dumbledore, softly. Severus hated to hear his voice starting to tremble.

“And the note?” he pressed on, determined to get answers. Almost all the portraits were occupied now, all of them wide awake and listening in. He spotted a few of the newcomers attempting to catch up with the situation by whispering questions to their neighbors.

“The note,” Dumbledore paused before sighing again. “I thought of the latter part of the plan during this past year. I do think you might already know the reason it was put in place.”

Severus did think he knew. It had seemed so flimsy of a reason back when the possible answer had first come to mind, way back when he had first thought of it in the dungeons. They had had a  _ war _ to win.

He cleared his throat, took in a breath.

“To clear my name,” he said.

Dumbledore nodded, his sorrowful smile growing wide.

“That was —” Severus’s voice broke off. “That was truly the reason?”

He felt Remus’s hand slip from his, then a warm grip on his shoulder.

“Yes, Severus, my dear boy.” 

The tears from Dumbledore’s shockingly blue eyes kept coming, and Severus briefly wondered how portraits could even cry, before he felt a warm sting behind his own eyes.

“You used me.” It was an echo, he thought, from long before. He knew of it, but the spot itself was still empty — he looked over at the Pensieve for the first time since he’d walked in, and saw swirling silver.

For the first time, Dumbledore broke his gaze. Hung his head. Severus was suddenly unsure of whether he was doing the right thing. He glanced over at Remus, who had been gazing at Dumbledore himself but looked around at him. Severus did not need words to ask, and Remus gave back a look —  _ It’s alright. _

Dumbledore spoke again, slower this time, as though he was trying to gain some semblance of control over his voice. It was so divorced from the deep well of calm Severus had known that he felt thrown off balance.

“I cannot deny that,” he said, and Severus remembered the mild indignance of last year. ( _ “Meaning?” _ Like he didn’t know, like he deemed it too unimportant to consider.) The hurt he felt was different this time; he thought it might even be more painful than before. Next to him, Remus took in a sharp breath.

Dumbledore kept on speaking, looking down at his interlocked fingers. “I have used the ability and potential you had, as a means to reduce losses, to win the war.” Severus thought he saw the tears falling freely now, from his eyes onto his hands and the table they were resting on. “I have lied to you, kept you in the dark about so many things. I did it… for—”

“For the greater good.”

The words left Severus’s lips before he had quite finished processing them. He regretted it instantly. Dumbledore seemed to sag before him, as he himself had shrunk from the old man’s disgust on that windy hilltop, all those years ago.

None of them spoke for what felt like a few minutes. Severus looked away from Dumbledore, to the side, and Remus caught his gaze. He returned Remus’s look somewhat beseechingly, afraid that he would confirm his fear that he had gone too far; but Remus’s eyes, another shade of blue entirely, still held a fire that Severus knew wasn’t directed at him. And he remembered just how unforgiving Remus could be.

Fawkes rustled his feathers a bit, and he turned to look, suddenly certain that the bird would express disapproval at his words on behalf of his owner. But when Fawkes turned to look at him, he paused for a second, then his long neck bent down and he brushed his head against Severus’s forehead. Supportively. And he realized.

“Fawkes answers to me now.”

Dumbledore raised his head at long last. His face was covered in tear tracks and his old, lined face bore a terrible sorrow. Severus met eyes with him with great difficulty, and the former headmaster nodded.

“Was that by your arrangement as well?”

Dumbledore blinked, and paused to take a breath. He still spoke slowly, as if fighting for calm. “Fawkes cannot remain faithful to the dead. Nor can his allegiance be decided for him. I admit I — gave him a push in your direction, but he is yours because he chose you, Severus.”

Severus looked again at the large red-and-gold bird, serene and magnificent, and for the life of him could not fathom why. He didn’t ask, though; he had a feeling Remus would tell him off for it if he did.

“Severus.”

Dumbledore’s voice was small and imploring. Severus was reminded of the hilltop again, and then the top of the tallest tower of Hogwarts castle. Of all the things he had thrown away. The man who had led him through it all. He looked Dumbledore in the eyes, and thought of those same emotions he had used to drum up the hatred needed to cast the Killing Curse. He came up empty.

“I apologize,” said the portrait, said the last echo of the greatest headmaster Hogwarts had ever known. “I cannot ask for your forgiveness, and I will not. But I apologize for everything I have done to you.”

_ For the greater good. _ When Severus had first known, he had been shocked. Then he had remembered Dumbledore’s coldness, in moments when he hadn’t needed to show warmth.

Over and over he had turned it in his mind, this new revelation that he hadn’t even imagined, that Dumbledore would probably have never told him. He had thought of misguided brilliance and an aching hunger for something better. And over time, bit by bit, the resentment and bitterness had melded into a terribly familiar, bone-deep understanding. He hadn’t realized that until now.

“It was work that had to be done,” he said, and it was hard to keep the emotion out of his voice. He didn’t try to raise his walls; there was no point in that anymore. “And if I was the best person for it, then so be it.”

Dumbledore stared at him with an expression Severus remembered him wearing only once before. Again he searched for hatred, came up empty.

“I do not blame you for the choices you made,” he continued. He felt Remus’s eyes on him, the grip of Remus’s hand on his shoulder tightening. “They were necessary choices. They won us the war.”

The impossible hope that flared in the bright blue eyes returning his gaze made his throat feel raw. “We wouldn’t have defeated Voldemort without your lead. And I — thank you — for giving me the chance to clear my name.”

It was, he realized, the first time he had said Voldemort’s name aloud. He thought he saw Remus do a kind of double take beside him. It was borne out of an acquired sort of bravery,  _ and acquired a little too late,  _ he thought; the first time he spoke Voldemort’s name, he was already dead.

The tears had almost stopped in Dumbledore’s eyes, but he looked more despairing than ever. “It was the least I could have done,” he said, and suddenly Severus saw a young adult with auburn hair, carrying the crushing weight of the loved ones he had abandoned. “The  _ least _ , Severus, after — after everything.”

The portraits were all full now. Headmasters and headmistresses alike had listened raptly to the conversation; some of the relative newcomers still looked a little confused.

“Nevertheless.” Severus tilted his head a little, still looking at the portrait of the old man, and he was hit with a wish that he was looking at the real thing. That it really was Dumbledore saying all these things to him. In another world, perhaps, he might be looking through a hidden window, hearing him talk to his likeness.

There was silence again, for an even longer stretch of time than before. Gradually, Dumbledore regained a semblance of his usual composure; his eyes were reddened and still filled with a sorrow Severus couldn’t begin to parse, but he was no longer weeping, and his breaths no longer came in small gasps.

After a while, Severus spoke again. “I also wanted to ask,” he said, and glanced at Remus. He seemed to know what Severus was thinking, and his eyes widened a little in shared inquiry. “Did you know that Harry Potter was not going to die?”

Dumbledore smiled again, and it was miles away from the twinkling one he so often wore. “I had strongly suspected so,” he said. Paused. Then, “And I am also remorseful that I did not tell you of it.”

“May I ask why?”

“I…” Dumbledore let out a sigh again, as if trying to quell the shakiness in his voice with it. “I do think it was because I wanted to leave as little room for mistakes as possible. Not that you have ever made substantial mistakes, Severus, but as these were extreme circumstances…”

Severus thought of Harry. Could he have stopped himself from implying that he may not need to die? Possibly. But he had ended up giving the information to him in memory form; he realized that could not have worked, had Dumbledore told him the full extent of what he knew or suspected.

“... And I also did not wish to get your hopes up about the... yet unclear matter. Nor mine.” Dumbledore’s voice was grave.

“You would have let Harry die.” Remus’s voice cut like a knife, and Dumbledore seemed to shrink again. Severus turned to him again, threw him a look.  _ Don’t. _ He did not blame him; his shock was still fresh. But they had lived through calculations, of sacrifices, of choices of a few fallen over hundreds, whether they had known of it or not; perhaps one day they might come to terms with it.

It took some time for them to start up something resembling a conversation again. Eventually, Dumbledore asked about Severus and Remus. Lighter questions, easier answers. The twinkling glint in his eyes gradually returned over a few minutes, but Severus thought he saw a shade of something else there still; he gazed at the two of them as though they reminded him of something he had long lost.

There was a knock on the door.

“Ah,” said Dumbledore. “It seems we have guests. Severus, if you could kindly open the door for them.”

_ It can’t be Minerva, _ thought Severus suddenly.  _ Could it? _ He wasn’t ready. Minerva wasn’t a portrait, nor had she known his true allegiance until just now. He remembered loaded silences, cold fury, disgusted glances thrown his way.

He turned and walked towards the door, out of Remus’s reach, and Fawkes took off from his shoulder, perhaps to hover somewhere behind him. He pulled the door open, and it was not Minerva McGonagall looking back at him.

And this, he was even less ready for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, sorry for the delay in the upload! I'll try my best not to miss any posting dates from now on, and I thank you all for your patience <3
> 
> This chapter focused on Severus talking it out with Albus; as you probably have guessed, next in line is Harry. Though the chapter before ended in Harry arriving at the door to the headmaster's office, I felt it was important to show the actual talk Severus and Remus had with Albus beforehand.
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are the light of my life, and thank you so much for reading!! I'll see you next week with chapter 9 :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape
> 
> Conversations are difficult — especially when it's with someone one used to hate.

If its occupants hadn’t been forbidden to talk of what they heard outside its walls, the headmaster’s office would be the birthplace of most of the gossip in Hogwarts castle. The most interesting conversations are held there, after all.

Severus stood rooted to the spot, looking past Ronald Weasley’s grime-covered face, into the same green eyes he had thought would be the last thing he would be seeing in his life, just a few hours before. Harry stared back.

His clothes were torn in multiple places, and Severus was fairly sure his knees would be badly scraped under the frayed fabric of his jeans. His hair was less wild than usual, weighed down by dirt and sweat, and his face bore several cuts. And for the first time in as long as Severus could remember, the green eyes held not a trace of hatred.

He didn’t know how long they had been quietly facing each other, just a few feet apart, Severus’s hand still on the door handle.

Then Remus broke the silence from behind him. 

“Come in, Ron. Harry, Hermione,” he said, in that inviting tone he’d adopted when he talked to the students as a professor (Severus had been annoyed and amused by it in equal measure), if a bit subdued. Severus turned to look at him as he stepped backwards, grateful for his intervention. Remus gave him a look, and he nodded resignedly. _Don’t put your shields up_ , he had seen.

Ronald Weasley held the door open for his two friends to pass. The last to step inside, Hermione Granger carefully closed the door behind her, taking a little too long, as if apprehensive about turning around. Once she did, she looked around the office, apparently in spite of herself, taking in the many portraits on the walls and the thick, dusty volumes on high bookcases.

Harry was looking from Severus to somewhere behind him and back. He turned around and saw Dumbledore, who was smiling warmly at the pair of them. Fawkes, he noticed, had perched himself on the arm of the headmaster’s chair, looking content. The twinkle in Dumbledore’s bright blue eyes was back in its full form, dancing in his eyes like mischief, and Severus wondered if he’d purposefully had them run into each other — he wouldn’t put it past the old man.

“I’m sure you shall want another talk with me, my boy, now that everything is over,” said Dumbledore, addressing Harry. Severus frowned. _Another?_

He saw Harry give a short nod out of the corner of his eye.

“All in due time.” Dumbledore’s smile grew a little wider, more wrinkles forming around his eyes. “But for now, I must make my way down to the second floor; I promised a very harrowed young gentleman that I would help him find his eagle quill.”

Severus blinked, held back a sigh of frustration. _Of course._

As Dumbledore walked out of his frame, he motioned to the other portraits on the walls. Some glanced at each other, looking put out — then they started to trudge out of their respective frames and vanished from view. Some took longer than others, making a point of lingering behind and throwing looks over their shoulders at the inside of the office, but soon enough, all of the paintings were left barren.

Severus had never seen the paintings in the headmaster’s office do that before; if anything, they had been eager for any arguments or scoldings to listen in to. He didn’t know if he felt more relieved or anxious at the thought that they had been left to themselves.

“Should…” All of them turned, looked at Hermione Granger, who hesitated before continuing. Severus noticed she had several injuries across her face, and wondered why none of the three had gotten around to healing their wounds. 

“Should we leave too?” She gestured at herself and Ronald Weasley.

“I will as well,” said Remus, and Severus whipped his head around to stare at him. _You’re leaving me out to dry like this?_ Remus gave a small apologetic smile back and said, “The reason everyone left is to give the two of you a space to talk. I’ll be outside, under the staircase.”

He led the remaining two out of the office; Weasley exchanged a look with Harry before following him out. Only Severus, Harry, and Fawkes remained where they were. The latter was settled on his perch on the high chair behind the headmaster’s desk, beady eyes glancing from one person to the next. Turning to close the door behind him, Remus threw Severus a half-sorry, half-encouraging smile before pulling the door shut.

And they were left alone.

Severus had just started to think that if they needed privacy, the two of them could have just gone to an empty classroom instead of everyone else having to evacuate, when Harry cleared his throat.

“Er,” he said.

 _Well-spoken as always,_ Severus thought, but he didn’t say it aloud. The distance between the two of them felt even farther than it had throughout all the years they had loathed each other. 

He bit back a sigh. He supposed that with the ‘er’, Harry had done his part in starting the conversation, and now the ball was in his court whether he liked it or not.

So he took a deep breath whilst trying his hardest to make it look as though he wasn’t finding the situation deeply uncomfortable in the least. 

“You lingered in the Great Hall for a bit before coming up here, I suspect.”

Harry nodded; he was gazing at Severus with an expression he did not not ever recall him wearing in his vicinity before. It made a small part of him want to look away; it was good, then, that he had locked it up long ago.

“Yeah,” said Harry. His voice held a half-chuckle, or maybe it was just shaky. “I got away from everyone quickly enough, though.”

“I imagine you would want some privacy.”

Harry let out an actual chuckle this time, though it sounded rather gravelly. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, I do. I mean, it’s not like I don’t care about all of them, but… I’m tired, I guess.”

What they were doing, standing and talking to each other without the least bit of vitriol, was so alien that it kept throwing Severus off guard every time each of them spoke. 

“I don’t believe you knew you would find _me_ here,” he said.

“No. I came to see —” Harry gestured behind Severus at the empty painting just above the headmaster’s chair.

“I thought as much.”

“I… just wanted to ask him something.” 

Harry looked like he was pondering for a moment. Then his eyes grew wide and he opened his mouth as if to say something — but then he quickly shut it again, looking mildly embarrassed. Severus wondered exactly what Harry had wanted to ask Dumbledore; he had a sneaking suspicion it might have something to do with him.

“So, er —” Harry started again, glancing somewhere behind him again, “how long has… Fawkes been yours?”

Severus raised his eyebrows. “How do you know he _is_ mine?”

Harry shrugged. “I guessed.”

“A better guess than your usual ones, then.” 

Harry’s face broke into a grin at the small jibe; his face muscles looked a little stiff. Severus hadn’t expected that. He had absolutely no idea how to react. So he said, “And to answer your question, only for a few hours.”

“Oh.”

They fell silent for a moment. 

It took a reminder to himself that he was currently speaking to the savior of the Wizarding World for Severus to find something to say again. 

“So.” He felt profoundly awkward. “You… have done well.”

Harry let out a huff of laughter again. 

“I… thanks,” he said. Then, “You too.”

Severus blinked. Harry looked as awkward as he himself had felt a moment before, but he kept talking. 

“You’ve done a lot. A lot more than I have.”

 _Because I had a lot to repent for._ Severus suddenly remembered the night he’d first seen the boy’s hatred turn murderous, his own uncontrollable guilt and fury, the top of the tallest tower, and the heat from the burning hut behind him. 

_“Kill me like you killed him, you coward —”_

_Does he not think me cowardly anymore?_ He supposed it was an inane question. If the thought haunted him that much, he should at least be able to face it.

He looked at Harry, who had fallen silent, waiting for a response. _Was he prepared to give in to everything?_ He wondered. Once he brought this up, he was sure he would never be able to stand tall in front of Harry again, to look him in the eye. Talking of it would mean cementing it. 

He thought of the fierce tremor in Harry’s voice that night, almost a year ago, and the terrible loss and fury beneath. If he had indeed bled to death in the Shack, the memories he’d given Harry might have been enough of an apology. _That is perhaps a silver lining,_ he thought. _That I’d unknowingly planted the seeds for this conversation._ It made it easier to bring it up, if only just a bit. And with Lily Potter’s eyes looking into his, he knew that it was something he had to do.

“I owe you… an explanation,” he said, slowly. He had no idea how to go about it. How to start talking about how he had initiated the chain of events that led the boy in front of him to grow up parentless. How he had stolen a life that could never be given back. Harry was looking at him quizzically, but by the time he had opened his mouth to speak again, realization seemed to be dawning on him, understanding creeping its way into his expression.

“The prophecy,” Severus added. It was excruciating to say, and he felt like he was pushing the words out of himself. “I owe an apology, and the full truth, if… if you ask for it.” He paused. Tried to keep his breath from shuddering so much. Started again. 

“You must already know the broad details of what I did, and why. It is all you need to know. And about what I did —”

“Sir,” Harry cut across him. Severus, whose gaze had drifted downwards, looked up. Blinked.

“There’s… no need,” said Harry.

He stared, for a long moment. “No need?” His voice was quiet, incredulous.

“You don’t have to bring that up now.”

Severus searched, but he couldn’t find discomfort in Harry’s face, nor disdain. The boy who always wore his heart on his sleeve looked more earnest than Severus had ever seen him, and it scared him like nothing else had.

“The war’s just ended,” said Harry, and though he hadn’t raised his voice, it felt much louder all of a sudden. “And you’ve done so much for it to happen. So.” He gave a half-shrug, a little shake of his head.

Severus felt a roar of something sickeningly familiar rise up inside him. The thing that had always seemed to grab him and drag him to the past, forcing him to look at everything he had done wrong.

“Not nearly enough,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper now.

Harry was gazing at him with so much of what seemed to be that damned understanding in his eyes that it was getting harder and harder to maintain eye contact. 

“Some would argue more than enough,” he said. Severus caught an undercurrent of fierceness, didn’t dare to believe it was on his behalf. “We couldn’t have defeated Voldemort without you.”

Almost two years ago, in this same building, way down in the dungeons — _Do not say the Dark Lord’s name!_ Now, Severus was surprised to realize he hadn’t so much as flinched.

“That… is irrelevant.”

“I don’t think it is.” The stubbornness that had so often been directed towards him had made a sudden return with an old familiarity. Severus could easily see him, just then, from a few years back, glaring up at him over his mediocre concoction bubbling in his cauldron. 

“I know what you did back then, and I also know a part of what you did for the Light. Not even all of it. Just a fraction. And I still think you’ve done much more than… than what anyone else would have been able to.”

Severus stared. He felt a stinging behind his eyes and willed himself not to start _crying,_ of all things. Harry looked right back at him, the exhaustion in his face now replaced with a kind of hard resolve, as if he was trying to persuade his former potions professor into not feeling guilty.

And Severus looked. He had looked at the boy for six years, and had much too often seen the hated face of a man glaring back at him. The same arrogance and disregard for anything, up to and including his own safety, had not done much more than set Severus’s belief more firmly in stone, and remind him of his own mistakes in turn. He had never known if he hated a boy, the feelings the boy had brought forth, or a man. And only now, he knew, was he actually _looking_ , and what he saw was worlds apart from the person he had loathed, who he had been so certain would be behind the masks that were those emerald green eyes.

Someone who knew compassion, for the man who had lost him everything.

They kept staring at each other for a few moments. Then Harry blinked, as if remembering something, and looked over to where the Pensieve stood. 

“You didn’t get your memories back.”

“I’m not entirely certain I’m ready to have them back. My mind feels too crowded and cluttered at the moment.” He said it without mulling the words too much inside his head. It felt freeing to do that. _I should really stop thinking too hard about what to say._ It was another product of the war he might one day be able to casually shrug off.

“Is it because you let go of all your shields, back when you faced Voldemort?”

Severus nodded.

“I think that’s how minds are supposed to feel.” A semblance of a cheeky grin was making its way back onto Harry’s face.

Severus’s head still felt uncomfortably crowded; he wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to get used to that. He grimaced slightly. “It’s no wonder you were so mediocre in Potions.”

Harry laughed. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I s’pose.”

Just then, there was a knock on the door, and they both turned towards it. It opened a little, and Remus poked his head inside.

“I know amplified verbal messages don’t reach the main office,” he said quickly, without preamble. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“No,” they said together, then looked at each other, suddenly sheepish.

“Well,” said Remus, “Minerva’s just asked everyone in the castle to come down to the Great Hall.”

“Why?” said Harry, though Severus thought he just might know the reason.

“Unfinished business.” Behind Remus, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger had appeared, hovering behind him and looking anxious. “Death Eater roundups, castle repairs, taking care of things at the Ministry, and all that.”

“Oh,” said Harry. And he looked to Severus.

Severus was sure the shock had shown in his face, before he suppressed it the best he could. The way Harry had looked around at him just now, it was as though he was asking, as if suggesting that he would move with Severus or not at all. 

He heard a soft caw from behind, and felt Fawkes land on his shoulder. The bird nudged at the side of his head encouragingly. And he thought of going down to the Great Hall, and meeting old faces that had known him to be a traitor, called him a murderer. He wondered how they might greet him, if at all. Then he thought of what Harry had just told him, and of Dumbledore’s plan to clear his name. If it had worked, as so many of his plans had.

He met Harry’s eyes again. Nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I thought there was little chance Severus and Harry would pour their hearts out to each other the first time they met after the war, the conversation doesn't perfectly resolve everything. (We have a long way to go until we get there.) Nevertheless, they still told each other the gist of what they wanted to say, so that's something, right? :D
> 
> Thank you very very much for reading, as always! If you have any thoughts floating inside your mind, unencumbered by Occlumency shields, I'd very much appreciate it if you'd let me know in the comments <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+Nymphadora Tonks)
> 
> The immediate aftermath, and the regaining of some semblance of structure.

The jubilant celebrations in the Great Hall had died down in a surprisingly short amount of time. The dead were weighing down on them all. Dora could almost feel it.

Harry had long since disappeared off to somewhere without her taking notice. She supposed that expecting him to stick around throughout the aftermath would be asking too much of him. He’d never been one to enjoy spotlights; she’d noticed that. She remembered him looking more than miffed at her questions on the London underground on their way to St. Mungo’s, more than two years ago.

She seemed to be doing a lot of that recently. Remembering.

“Tonks,” called Kingsley, who was walking ahead of her.

“Dora,” she said.

Kingsley did a half-turn towards her, stopping in his tracks, and then he seemed to think better of it. He nodded, resuming his pace. “Hurry up, Dora.”

She quickened her pace and caught up with him, moving out from the hall. They were in the process of moving the fallen Death Eaters outside of the Great Hall, away from the bodies of their own. After the immediate aftermath was dealt with, they would have to do more demanding things, to look further. Dora wasn’t sure if she fully recalled how to do that; strategizing had been a big part of Auror training, but just now she felt fully entitled to laugh in its face.

Some of the Death Eaters she recognized; others were complete strangers to her. _How many of these people willingly joined their cause?_ She might have asked that, before. Now she gave one-word answers, nodded, didn’t ask questions.

“Unidentified… three more,” muttered Savage, scribbling on her parchment as she swept past. The dark-haired Auror was walking between the rows of bodies, tallying them up, jotting down names.

Dora put down the two stretchers she was carrying. Savage made a beeline back towards her, looking at her expectantly.

“He’s dead,” said Dora, pointing. “And that one’s Stunned. Still breathing normally.”

Savage grunted at that, as if to say she disapproved of that fact. Dora had never gotten along with her that well.

“Names?” she said.

“Rookwood, Augustus,” said Dora, pointing at the Stunned man. “I couldn’t identify that one.”

“Looking through the notes for that, then,” said Savage, almost to herself. She was already walking away.

Dora moved each of the stretchers to their designated spots. She saw that there were much less of the dead; most of the Death Eaters were merely Stunned or injured. A few of them had started to stir feebly.

“Are you going to do anything with them?” she said, directing the question at Savage, who looked over to where she was gesturing.

“Already confiscated all their wands,” said Savage. “And put Binding Charms on the stretchers. Nothing I can’t handle.”

The woman had always been full of herself, Dora mused. Before, she might have been able to think up something to cheek her; she didn’t like being too antagonistic, and if there was anything she had been good at, it was banter.

“If you say so,” she said.

After most of the Death Eaters had been moved out, Kingsley approached her with a formal-looking paper in his hand.

“I need you to go to St. Mungo’s,” he said without preamble, handing the form to her. “Get a list of the names sent there and the nature of the injuries.”

_And what’ll the rest of you be doing while I’m gone?_

_Can’t someone go with me? It’s boring on my own._

_Don’t miss me too much._

She nodded. Turned and strode out of the Great Hall, past Savage and the Death Eaters, outside into the early morning sunlight.

As she walked briskly across the grounds, she saw people and creatures outside, carrying limp bodies on their backs, or tending to each other’s wounds. She caught a laugh from just a few yards away, ringing out into the crisp air, relieved and happy and carefree. She felt a stab of anger she couldn’t quite place, and quickened her steps even more.

She Apparated to some distance away from the station that led to the hospital. As soon as she landed, her foot caught on a protruding brick and she fell to the ground. The air was knocked out of her for a second. She felt like screaming and crying right there, lying on the sidewalk between two rows of old Muggle buildings.

“Miss, are you alright?” someone called from behind. It sounded like they were approaching.

Dora got up as fast as she could without falling again, and started walking fast, not turning to look towards the voice that had called for her. She only slowed her pace after she turned the corner and was almost certain the source of the voice wasn’t approaching her any more. She wiped the tear tracks from her cheeks as she walked, and with every clop of her shoes on the stone, she repeated immediate pasts and immediate futures to herself.

She had just fought in the final battle, and they had just won. She had finished moving Death Eaters outside of the hall. She was going to St. Mungo’s now. She was going there to check on the patients. The patients are in St. Mungo’s because of the war. After she fills out the form, she will go back to report to Kingsley. And then… and then —

She shook her head furiously to clear it. But she couldn’t stop thoughts from spilling in, unbidden.

She would have to go to her mother. Every time she thought of her, she recalled the fight, and felt a roiling in her stomach. Her mother who had shut herself up for the past few months inside the home she had built, where she had raised her only daughter and planned for a life together with her husband. Her mother who had always been an anchor for Dora, when she felt that she was drifting too much.

Now, she was lost at sea.

 _“Your father is on the_ run _.”_

_“I’m an Auror!”_

_“You’re staying_ home _, so I know you’re safe.”_

 _See, Mum? I_ am _safe. I’m fine._ She would say, when she got back home.

And then maybe everything _would_ be fine. Maybe her mother would make a cup of tea for the two of them, and they’d sit in companionable silence, and then everything would become alright again. In the house her mother had built with the most modest hopes of happiness, where Dora had grown up in. Where pictures taken at wedding anniversaries hung in every other room.

* * *

Remus held on to Severus’s hand tightly as they made their way down from the office. There was a rather awkward distance between Harry’s small group and the pair of them. Severus didn’t shake his arm away, and Remus smiled in spite of himself. He’d missed the feeling of Severus’s hand in his. Fawkes had opted to stay in the headmaster's office, which Remus was also rather grateful for; the bird seemed to have a habit of stealing one of Severus's shoulders whenever he was in his vicinity.

Ahead of them, Hermione had regained her usual talkativeness. Remus couldn’t catch everything she was saying, but it looked like she was talking about what Minerva would have them do once they were assembled. Harry was mostly nodding along, and Ron seemed to reply with a question every now and then.

As they neared the ground floor, they spotted those who were coming inside from the grounds. Several centaurs surveyed the inside of the castle warily as they stepped inside, still holding their bows. As Remus watched, Hagrid walked out from the hall and they exchanged a few words, before leading them inside.

“If we need to do clean-ups or raids,” said Severus suddenly, in a low enough voice that the three ahead of them would not hear him over Hermione, “are you going to help?”

“Don’t I have to help?” Remus smiled wryly. Severus gave a small shrug.

“No one can make you.”

“ _You’re_ going to help,” said Remus. It wasn’t a question.

“Well,” said Severus, in a way that suggested that he felt Remus bringing that up was distinctly unfair, “yes, but…”

Remus smiled, wider this time, and hoped it reached his eyes. 

“You can’t tell me not to help, when I know for a fact you’re going to throw yourself into it. And it won’t be that dangerous — we’ve just been in a war, for Merlin’s sake.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to be careful,” Severus mumbled.

Remus reached up to thread his fingers through black hair. They’d stopped in the middle of the stairs.

“I’ll go where you’re going,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”

“Mm.”

They kissed, half a floor above the Great Hall, in plain view of the front of the grounds. Remus let out a breathy chuckle as they pulled apart.

“Come on.”

The House tables had been placed in their usual spots again. It made the enormous space seem less daunting, almost as if nothing had happened, if it hadn’t been for the great chips and cracks in the stone pillars all around the hall. Harry, Ron and Hermione had already entered, and were sitting at the back of the Ravenclaw table. Severus pulled Remus toward the far end of the hall; curious, Remus looked back and searched the Slytherin table, after a moment spotting the three Malfoys sitting huddled at a corner of it.

People threw Severus, Remus, and their interlocked hands furtive looks as they settled down. A couple of seats down, a young man Remus recognized as Dean Thomas of Harry’s year spotted him, and waved. Remus nodded back.

Minerva McGonagall and Kingsley Shacklebolt were standing together at the headmaster’s podium. Remus noticed that Severus glanced over at the spot once, then looked away rather hastily. He squeezed his fingers.

Minerva stepped forwards, and cleared her throat. The low, steady chatter that had blanketed the hall quietened almost at once.

“Lord Voldemort is dead,” she began, but the rest of her sentence was drowned in a couple of whoops, that led to a thunderous roar of noise that contrasted starkly with the somber hall they had walked into. Remus met eyes with Severus, and they exchanged a look.

Where during student assemblies she might have called for silence, now Minerva waited for the noise to die down before speaking again.

“But there is work left to be done,” she continued, as silence fell rapidly once more. “Anyone who wishes to lend a hand in it will be welcome.

“From those who work in the Ministry of Magic, we require temporary heads of various offices, as well as the Minister. The decisions required for the necessary processes shall be made inside Ministry walls, and any of those who fought today’s battle shall have a voice in it, if they wish to.”

Further down the table, Remus spotted the Weasley family. Ron had made his way to them and was now seated between Percy and George; Percy was clutching his hand tightly, and Ron had yet to pull away. Remus gazed at them, counted eight heads. He’d heard of Fred’s death from Ron back in the headmaster’s office, but it didn’t stop his heart from dropping into his stomach. He wondered if Percy and Arthur would go to the Ministry to use their voice and shape decisions. Wondered if one could still want to fight for things bigger than themselves, after they had lost brothers and sons for it.

“From some of the Aurors and other forces of the battle,” Minerva was saying, “volunteers will be led to help raid known bases of Death Eaters, and to track down those who are still at large.”

Remus looked to Severus again, and they shared another look. That would be where they were going.

“From everyone, volunteers shall help repair the damages that need to be urgently addressed. Here in Hogwarts castle, and a few buildings in Hogsmeade.”

She paused a bit, before continuing.

“The reason repairs for the castle is being addressed this early, at a time for both celebrations and — mournings,” she cleared her throat, “is because of those who have been left without shelter due to complications from the war. We shall be accommodating the castle to fit with those who wish to stay here for the time being, the best that we can, so that proper… healing — may be able to take place.”

She stepped backwards, her lips tightly pursed as if to stop then from trembling. Before little more than a couple people had started clapping, Kingsley took to the podium.

“Please do not move until I have finished with the instructions,” he said.

“Those who wish to return to the Ministry,” he gestured to the space in front of the Gryffindor table, “please move here. We will be moving as a group.

“The volunteers for the remaining fights and raids,” he pointed at the other end of the hall, “there. After these two groups have moved out, Filius will take the volunteers for the castle repairs.”

There was a flurry of movement. Remus spotted Arthur rising from the table, and exchanging a few words with Molly and his children before walking towards where the other Ministry workers were heading. Percy, he saw, remained in his seat, still holding onto Ron’s hand.

He and Severus rose from the table as one, and they made their way across the hall. Halfway there, Severus let out a sigh.

“What?”

“Minerva,” Severus said quietly. “She’s leading the raids.”

Remus scanned the hall, and saw Minerva lining up those who had already moved to the front of the Slytherin table and counting heads.

“You’ll need to see her eventually anyway,” he said.

“I’m still not ready.”

“I’m more scared of being sent on these raids amidst all the youth,” said Remus, gesturing at the people gathering in front of Minerva. Almost all of them were far younger than they were. “Are you sure we won’t be more of a hindrance than a help?”

Severus grimaced. “They’ve done their part, why are they staying for this?” he muttered.

They had reached the rear end of the crowd. Harry and Hermione were at the back, and they moved to meet them.

“We thought you’d come,” said Hermione.

“Hey,” said Harry.

Remus waited for Severus to respond, only smiling back at them after Severus had inclined his head in acknowledgement. He elbowed him in the ribs and threw him a look that was only partly serious — _That’s the best you can do?_

Severus gave a shrug back. 

Then he grew still. Following his eyeline, Remus saw Minerva, who was staring back at him. After a moment, she turned to say something to the people at the very front of the line, before walking off to the side. Then she gestured at Severus.

Heads turned, and Severus’s face grew grim and blank, as if he was Occluding again. He exchanged another look with Remus. Then, after a reassuring squeeze of fingers, he turned, and followed Minerva McGonagall out of the Great Hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A little explanation incoming, skip reading if you don't want to!)  
> You can guess more development will be coming Dora's end. The aftermath of the death of her father was kind of just glossed over in canon, and I wanted to give Ted some of the mourning he deserves. Also, Severus is facing a never-ending torrent of difficult conversations. I can feel his pain and discomfort.
> 
> Thank you very much for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts through the comments, and please leave a kudos if you enjoyed it! <3


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+Nymphadora Tonks, Harry Potter)

Severus hadn’t forgotten his promise to Remus to keep his shields lowered. Only a few minutes ago, he had been sure he’d brought them down so quickly — and all at once at that — that they wouldn’t be able to even recover for some time. But as he walked out of the hall, the back of Minerva McGonagall’s head and her dirited robes in front of him, he felt the crumbled remnants rumbling back into action.

It didn’t help that she was wearing the same robes she had been in when they had duelled, just a few hours previously — he wondered if the knives she had shot at him would have actually run through him, had he just stood there and taken them. The thick walls he had hidden behind for so long started to rise back up, much quicker than he expected.

He let them.

It wasn’t as if Remus could really fault him for this at least, anyway; he would understand if he knew about the duel, at least, and in any case he seemed to intuit what had gone on between the two of them. Severus was glad for that. That he didn’t have to talk about it.

Professor McGonagall stopped a few feet away from the doors, where no one would be able to listen in. She turned, and Severus willed himself not to look away. He felt the blinds drawing just behind his eyes, blocking anything that might try to jump out of him. It was good that he had that protection just now, he thought — he found this was even worse than what he’d just been through with Harry up in the office.

The silence was suddenly broken, as the sharp sounds of shoes on stone echoed from across the entrance hall. Instinctively, Severus reached for his wand — he saw McGonagall doing the same out of the corner of his eye, whipping around — and then they saw that it was only Nymphadora Tonks. 

She was holding a thick parchment envelope in one hand, and she looked as though she had been crying. When her eyes fell upon the pair of them, who had now both pulled their hands out of their robes, they widened only a little. Looking unsure of what to do or say, she halted in front of them for a moment, before nodding once and heading into the hall. 

As the door closed behind her, Severus suddenly wished he could follow her in. Instead, he turned away from the entrance again.

It seemed as though Professor McGonagall had thought of what to say in advance. When she opened her mouth, the words came out like she was reading a practiced script.

“Time is short,” she said, her voice trembling only slightly, “so I shall state only the most urgent matters just now.”

She pulled out a slip of paper from her robes, and held it out for him to take. He glanced at her — her gaze was fixed on her outstretched hand — and then reached out, took it from her. His hand, unlike hers, wasn’t shaking.

He unfolded the slip as she continued to speak, and read the short list written on it.

“These are the places that, to our knowledge, served as bases for the Death Eaters,” said Professor McGonagall. He didn’t look up at her, but kept his gaze fixed on the paper, skimming through the list. “We — we wanted to ask you,” she faltered for a second, then half-convincingly regained her briskness, “if you knew of any of these to be false, and if you know of any other locations.”

Severus frowned down at the paper for a moment. Every other word she had spoken,  _ ”Coward!” _ had rung in his ears, as if he was listening to a broken record player. It took a few seconds for him to make sense of her request.

He pulled out his wand.

“Would you mind if I modified it?” he asked. His voice was calm, cold, detached, and he had a fleeting thought that if Remus could hear it he would disapprove.

Professor McGonagall hesitated, blinking, before she said, “No. Not at all.”

Severus gave his wand a flick. He then looked quickly through the changed list, which included about ten places now, and nodded to himself, handing it back. The tips of their fingers briefly touched as McGonagall reached out to take it, and he stopped himself from either yanking his hand away or inhaling a sharp breath, but only just.

“I’ve excluded the locations I know to be dead ends, planted as either diversions or traps,” he said curtly.

For a split second, she faltered in her movements again, as though she hadn’t expected to hear him speak. Then she nodded.

“We should go back inside, then,” she said, reaching for the doors. She looked away from him, like she had done so many times this past year, and Severus looked at the back of her head and suddenly imagined her to be wearing an expression of disgust or defiance. Those small things that he felt he might never forget.

* * *

The part of the hall that was within eyeshot of the entrance all watched Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape exit together. The sight started up a low buzz of talk, whose flow was broken when the doors opened again, and a young woman with dark brown hair walked in. The people who had turned around, half-expecting to see one of the two professors storming back inside, turned away again.

The woman glanced over at the crowd right in front of the double doors of the hall, and saw most of her colleagues at the Auror office standing there. She took them in, then walked briskly across the hall towards a tall man, who took the envelope she held out for him. He explained what had happened while she had been gone, why everyone was here inside the hall, what they were going to do. He gestured at the group near the doors. He didn’t comment on the redness in her eyes.

She nodded, and moved back across the hall towards the group at the entrance, where a short man with matted golden hair motioned for her to join him. When she reached him, he gave her a sad smile, patted her on the back. She didn’t smile back; she was grateful, though, and hoped it showed.

Near the back of the group, around a dozen people were huddled together, though the conversations were mostly happening in groups of threes and fours.

“Where d’you reckon the raids will be?”

“I don't know,” said Hermione Granger. "I'm not sure if we'll actually be taking part in them, actually. I think the Aurors will be tasked with the raids.”

She gestured at the front of the long line, where almost everyone from the Auror office stood together.

“So we’re tracking down Death Eaters?” said Seamus Finnigan, looking half eager, half hesitant.

“I think,” said Hermione, frowning, “that  _ we’ll  _ be more like backup. We can fight, but we aren’t professionally trained in those things like the Aurors are. I think we’ll be assigned to follow their teams, and assist when we’re needed.”

She looked to the bespectacled young man beside her, who shrugged.

“I think you’re right,” he said, as he had so often done during his school years. He pulled off his glasses to adjust them again; the legs had bent during the battle and he hadn’t quite managed to return them to their original state yet.

“That  _ you’re _ just backup is ridiculous,” said Ernie Macmillan, who was still in his Hogwarts robes. The sleeves, which had always been flimsy, were ripped and torn, and his Hufflepuff badger on his chest was barely visible under all the muck and debris.

“Like Hermione said, none of us are properly trained enough to lead the raids,” said Harry. “It doesn’t make any difference what we’ve been through in the war.” 

If it had been another time, Harry might have felt a kind of misplaced resentment, the same kind he had felt when he had been offered to participate in writing a book based on his life, when he had been interviewed alone for an event he hadn’t even wanted to be in, when he had first been told he had special powers. But now he looked at proud, pompous Ernie Macmillan and felt nothing but a surging relief and gratitude. Hearing everyone’s voices again had been good.

“Well,” said Ernie, “yes, I suppose. But —” he made a sweeping motion with his hands, as if to say, ‘ _ it’s _ you _ , though.’ _

It was then that the doors of the entrance opened once more, and this time it actually was who people had been expecting. The two professors did not storm inside in a rage, and nothing in their movements or expressions indicated the possibility of an argument. Severus Snape turned after he entered behind Minerva McGonagall and swept to the back of the group without a word; a man in dirty light-brown robes moved to meet him.

At the front of the group, McGonagall gestured for all of them to follow her, similarly to how she had done when she was shepherding a group of eleven-year-olds on their first arrival at the castle so many times before. Then she led the way out, and everyone in the crowd moved to walk out behind her.

A lot of people’s eyes were fixed on the two men at the far back of the group. Their fingers were interlocked again. Just now, the weight of the war was so heavy that no one could spare any room to talk, or even think too deeply, about such trivial matters as unexpected relationships. But after time had helped the agony of memories fade, they would have something fresh to gossip about.

* * *

As they moved out of the hall, Severus caught Remus suddenly looking shifty.

“What?” he muttered.

Remus glanced at him, still looking self-conscious. He then slid his hand away from Severus’s grip. 

Severus felt an icy chill. He remembered the long months of antagonism that had eaten away at him from the inside out, wondered wildly if it had all been indeed to good to be true —

“It’s not like that,” said Remus quickly, catching Severus’s expression and shaking his head. “It’s not what you’re thinking. I…” He hesitated. “It’s just… I forgot.”

There was a pause before Severus responded. 

“Forgot what?”

“That…” Remus sighed agitatedly. 

“You, being with me, if it’s… out like this…” He trailed off, as if he expected Severus to know the end of that sentence.

Severus gulped, and hoped it hadn’t been as loud as it had been inside his head. 

“You… You don’t want it to be?” He fought to keep his voice calm, his lowered mental shields readying themselves.

“ _ No _ ,” said Remus, more forcefully this time. “No, you ridiculous man. It’s that I’m… a werewolf. You know what people think of that; or have you forgotten?”

The morning air hit their faces. It was a rather windy day out, and the broken trees on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest sounded to be shrieking their indignance at being tossed about.

They were looking at each other, feet blindly following the sounds of the people in front. They had detached themselves a bit from the crowd ahead of them, walking a good few feet behind.

“What do you suggest we do,” said Severus softly, eyeing the regret on Remus’s face he didn’t know what to do with, “stay hidden? The war’s done, we’re free to do as we please now.” 

_ Isn’t that what we wanted? Or was it just me? _ He still couldn’t shake off the thought that he was the reason for Remus’s distress, that the lycanthropy was just an excuse. Remus was the type to be kind enough to make excuses when he didn’t want to be seen around with someone anymore, instead of telling them outright.

They kept staring at each other.

“If you’re associated with me, like this…” Remus trailed off again, though this time he looked like he didn’t know what to say next.

They were reaching the edge of the grounds, and Minerva was dividing the crowd up into groups.

“What if…” Severus paused. Then he turned his head, to face Remus fully. To look at those blue eyes, and ask them for the strength to be vulnerable.

“What if I want to be?” He gazed into Remus’s face, and searched for disappointment that he’d not complied to an implicit signal. He only found shock. He felt something like relief amidst his desperation; maybe the reason really wasn’t him at all.

“I…” Remus seemed to be at a complete loss for words. He opened his mouth and closed it several times.

“I — do you?” he said finally. He looked as if he was dreading the answer.

Remus’s eyes had never failed to allow him to be vulnerable.

“Yes,” he said.

“Remus!” called a voice, and both of them turned. Hermione Granger was waving at them. “Professor Snape, you’re with us!”

They shared a look that promised a future talk, Remus still looking stunned. Then Severus led the way to where Granger was standing, next to Michael Corner, in his blue-collared Ravenclaw robes. Severus remembered the time the Carrows had tortured the boy for freeing a chained-up student, and felt an age-old burning, twisting guilt.

But when the Ravenclaw met his eyes, there was no hatred in his gaze, and the boy inclined his head slightly in what could only be taken as a small bow. Severus tried not to look too floored, and nodded back wordlessly.

“Harry’s been split from us,” Granger was saying. “To match the numbers.”

“Hmm,” said Remus, peering down the line. “Ah,” he said, when he seemed to have spotted him, and waved. Severus saw a hand pop up from amongst the crowd to wave back. Some of the groups were already starting to walk towards the castle gates.

The Auror they had been grouped together with had a distinctly stern look about her; she seemed young, but Severus didn’t remember ever teaching her. She reached out a hand and Remus took it.

“Yerin Savage,” she said. Before Remus had had a chance to introduce himself, she had let go of his hand and reached for Severus’s. He took it and shook, not bothering to tell her his name. He didn’t remember ever hearing hers before; he definitely hadn’t taught her.

“We’ll be tracking down one of the biggest Death Eaters who seems to have escaped,” she said as soon as she let go of Severus’s hand. “Rodolphus Lestrange. He might have escaped along with some others in tow, so we’ll be expecting combat.”

She looked as though she wasn’t sure if she had said everything she needed to; it was a side Severus hadn’t caught from his first impression of the woman. They all nodded, and she looked rather relieved. 

Severus tried to shake Rodolphus Lestrange from his mind.  _ Just another Death Eater, _ he thought.  _ Just another criminal. _

_ Just another person I betrayed. _

Savage waved for them to follow, and started walking in quick strides across the grounds. The four of them walked close behind her, Severus glancing towards Remus again. He saw that a residue of the shock from before was still there on his face. When they met eyes, Remus seemed as though he was still looking for answers.

_ Did you mean it? _

Severus didn’t quite know what he should say to that, if only because he thought Remus should know things like that by now. So he settled on a smile through his stiff face muscles — and, for good measure, he took Remus’s hand in his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one had a hint of that much needed Remus-Severus interaction. Though lot of the chapters that are post-war will be slower like this one, based around conversations and inner thoughts, there are some fast-paced scenes written/planned out.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, as always <3 Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+Ron Weasley)
> 
> The start of grief is hardly ever the climax of it. Nor is the start of acceptance.

Most of the people who were in a good enough state to fight had left with McGonagall to join the raids, and with the group of Ministry workers gone, the hall was a lot emptier, and seemed much larger. The ceiling, one of the places that had remained almost untouched, reflected the brilliant blue sky outdoors. The sun was beaming down upon them, and the clouds were rolling along, casting brief shadows as they blocked the light from view.

Those left inside the hall were either huddled together at the tables, or had moved to the edge of the hall to crouch next to the dead.

“You’re not coming?”

Ron looked around at Percy, who had swung his legs out from under the table. He was still clutching Ron’s hand tightly in his own.

The rest of their family had already long left the table, standing around a stretcher and shielding the body lying on it from view.

“Not now.” Ron turned his head away to stare in front of him. 

“Do you want me to stay with you?” said Percy, after a moment.

Ron blinked. Percy turned around in his seat again.

“Thanks.”

Percy squeezed his brother’s hand in response.

Ron sighed deeply and glanced over again to the side. Weeping sounds punctuated the murmurs that echoed around the hall, rendering all the individual voices indistinguishable. He felt a low hum inside his head, similar to the outside sounds, blocking out thought; since how long ago he did not know.

“What d’you reckon dad’ll do at the Ministry?” he said.

Percy had always loved answering questions. Whenever you asked him a genuine question, he’d perk up, his eyes would grow bright and he would straighten his back. Now, he sighed and frowned, as if he hadn’t thought about it himself. _But that was absurd,_ Ron thought. _Percy always thought about everything._

“Like McGonagall said,” said Percy eventually, “discussions — maybe even decisions on the temporary Minister, and the heads of certain offices.”

“Why do they need dad for that?” said Ron, after a moment. That was the actual thing he had wanted to ask; he’d thought Percy would have caught it.

Percy sighed again before answering. He was looking off to the side as he spoke, eyes on the rest of their family, still blocking Fred’s body from view.

“You know I’ve been at the Ministry until a few hours ago,” he said, saying it like it was somewhere between a statement and a question. “It’s been pretty chaotic down there for a while. Some people were blatantly anti-Muggle, but aside from a few loud people, there was really no telling who was on which side. A lot of the supposed… “traitors”, to the regime, were either thrown out or thrown in prison. Muggle-borns were rounded up.”

“Yeah, I know,” Ron said, cutting Percy off from his rambling. His brother tended to do that sometimes, going off on tangents; that was something Ron was familiar with here, at least. Though usually he did that when he was excited about something, and now he sounded like he was getting lost in his thoughts. Ron had a fleeting desire to stop talking altogether, to stop listening, to go out of the Great Hall and to where no one knew him, to scream into silence and to hear nothing back.

Instead he said, “I broke into the Ministry with Harry and Hermione, remember? We saw it.”

Percy blinked, and cleared his throat.

“Yes,” he said. “Anyway, what I was trying to say was — there’s no official board appropriate for these decisions that hasn’t been infiltrated. So making the people who fought in the war on the side of the Light the decision-makers would be the better choice. I think,” he added.

Ron nodded. That their father was now in a position high enough to have a say in how to decide on a Minister for Magic might have been startlingly good news. If something like that had happened three years ago, Percy might not have walked out at all, and Ron might be able to look his brother in the eye properly without glancing away every other second. 

He thought about the nagging he’d always felt in the back of his mind as he’d heard the twins and Ginny rattle on about how much of a prat Percy was for up and leaving. He had never spoken up against his family, at least through little more than passing complaints, ever since he’d heard the kind of revilement people like Draco Malfoy talked about them with. But his family had split in two the day of the fight, and though he knew whose side he’d taken, he knew that sometimes he, too, had wanted to run away from all the preconceptions and expectations, and felt like a terrible hypocrite.

He thought about those things, in part because Percy had just said “I think,” as if he was unsure whether he could speak on the subject. As if he hadn’t acted like he was the ultimate authority on everything for as long as he’d been Ron’s brother. Percy never _thought;_ he knew.

They sat in silence for a moment. Far down the hall, someone was letting out a stream of strangled cries. _Stop,_ Ron thought. _Stop it._ They felt less like outside sounds, more like echoes inside his head. And the sound started to spread, the grief infectious, as people let it take them one by one. Sobs started up, louder than before, and wails. Ron was unsure of whether they were being let out on a lost island of their own, or in a terrible solidarity with everyone inside the hall. 

Percy’s back was to him. His shoulders had started to shake, and his grip on Ron’s hand had grown painfully tight. Where his eyeline was headed, Charlie had dropped to his knees, hitting his chest over and over with a clenched fist.

Ron tugged at Percy’s hand.

“Let’s go,” he said. He tasted tears and realized he was crying.

He saw Percy nod, and he turned to stand up from the table again. Ron caught a glimpse of his reddened eyes and his lips pressed tight together. They walked over to where the rest of the family stood.

Bill was the first to see them coming, and he moved forwards to throw his arms around Ron. Every time he did that, Ron had remembered Bill lifting him up into the air when he was little when Ron dashed into his open arms. 

It had always been Bill, when Ron stopped to think about it. He’d sat up with him through sleepless nights when Ron had been afraid of giant spiders in his room. _“There’s no spiders. Even if there are, they’re going against all of us, so it’ll be alright. I promise.”_ He had made the time for his littlest brother that their mother had never had. And sure enough, Molly Weasley hugged Percy tight, reaching out to pat Ron on the arm, and Ron felt utterly horrible for feeling the old stab of resentment in a situation like this.

He looked down at Fred again, lying face-up on the stretcher. His torso, ravaged by the explosion, had been covered up with a spare cloak, and now he just looked asleep. He looked a lot better than George had, the night he had lost his ear. So maybe, if they hoped enough —

George was crumpled in a heap on the ground and Ginny was covering him, lying across his back as though she was trying to shield him from sorrow. Fleur was there too, Ron realized; when they met eyes, she looked more lost than he’d ever seen her. He nodded with a half-attempt at a tremulous smile, and she returned the gesture. She was standing a little apart from them, and Bill reached out to squeeze her hand before placing it firmly on Ron’s shoulder again.

After a minute — or a hundred — of staring down at Fred, Ron thought of something. It chilled his insides.

“Bill,” he whispered.

“Hm?” Bill said back. His voice was remarkably steady. The marker of the eldest child, Ron supposed.

“I just remembered,” said Ron, pulling Bill slightly to the side and still speaking in a whisper. No one looked their way. “There’s an international statute on non-fatal combat, isn’t there?”

Bill took a beat to answer.

“Yeah, there is,” he said.

“Mum —”

“Mum will be fine,” said Bill, cutting across him, low and firm. “Bellatrix Lestrange was also duelling to kill, remember?” His voice quavered as he said it, and he cleared his throat as if to steady himself.

Ron stayed quiet for a moment.

“Loads of people saw the duel,” he said. He wasn’t a young man who had just fought in a battle, he was a boy crawling into his big brother’s bed, trembling in fear of the monster under his. _Stop. Make it stop._ Over and over.

“There will be a trial, probably,” Bill murmured, and Ron felt fingers threading through his hair, an arm steady on his back and a hand clutching his arm tightly. “But it’ll just be procedure. Nothing’ll happen.”

Ron reached around to hold the back of Bill’s robes tight. He was of a height with him and his feet were probably even bigger than Bill’s now. He hung on to the brother whose shoes he could never dream of filling, buried his face in Bill’s shoulder. The world that he’d thought would grow peaceful at the war’s end was quaking as if to dislodge him, and he found it was all he could do to stay upright. He distantly heard his sobs, closer to screams, echo through the hall.

Bill was holding tight to the back of Ron’s head.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he repeated, his voice low and in Ron’s ear. Ron could hear it through his own cries. “It’ll be okay. It’ll be alright.”

 _Do you promise?_ Ron clenched his eyes tight shut and he cried until his throat grew raw, until he grew so tired and lost that Fred’s blank, dead, open eyes almost faded from his mind. Almost. But not entirely.

* * *

“How are we finding him, exactly?” asked Michael Corner, as they neared the gates to the Hogwarts grounds. Next to him, Hermione perked up slightly; it seemed she had had the same question but had been too intimidated by the Auror to ask.

Yerin Savage turned to answer, but did not break her stride.

“Disapparition records,” she said briskly. “The Ministry kept close track of them ever since they were taken over by the Dark Side, which turned out useful for us now that we have access to them.” 

She waved her wand, and a file appeared in her hand.

“That’s it, then?” said Michael.

“This is just two days’ worth of records,” said Savage. “We’ve already taken note of the relevant patterns.”

She spoke as if she was constantly on the lookout for someone countering her, and was swiftly setting defenses in advance. Remus had noticed it was something of a pattern in the way she talked.

Severus was silent beside him, still grasping Remus’s hand in his own. Every time Remus looked down at their fingers, knitted tightly together, a part of him still screamed to pull away. Linking himself to the man beside him would be nothing short of criminal. But another part of him, warring with himself, wanted to pull Severus closer and hold on tight. For the rest of time, probably. 

Severus caught his eye, and smiled tentatively again. The desperate uncertainty Remus had caught in his expression earlier had vanished — Severus’s defaulting to blaming himself that he had seen in him for so long. And now, Remus dared to hope.

He might have wished that Severus would be the sensible one for him and agree, that he didn’t think they should be seen together either. Remus had hidden behind the coattails of his insecurities for as long as he could remember, which had always been taller than he had ever dared to reach. He might have even hoped Severus would see that very coward in him that he’d once loathed, and would shake him off like a bad habit. But no, he didn’t really want that. Not when Severus stood right beside him in the flesh, so close and real. When he had just told him he _wanted_ to be seen around with Remus; _absurd,_ said the voice in his head that sounded vaguely like his father, _how could he want that? How could anyone?_

“Right,” said Savage, jerking Remus back to reality. They were standing just in front of the gates now, and he and Severus let go of each others’ hands as they stood around her to hear her talk.

“We have three probable locations Lestrange and his men are hiding out in,” she said. “It looks like he has about six or seven men with him, and they moved around between locations so it became harder to track where they all converged.”

She was looking mainly at Severus as she spoke, who nodded along. Remus suspected he was encouraging her on, something he had rarely seen him doing.

“Where are the three places?” he asked. Remus expected her to look through the file as she answered, but she recited them as if on cue.

“The site of the former Lestrange manor, the Wyemor Woods, and an old moat down in Cay,” she said. The stern edge to her voice wasn’t as off-putting as it had been initially.

“I expect we’ll be paying the moat a visit first,” said Severus.

Remus, who hadn’t been able to come to any such conclusion, looked inquiringly from him to Savage, the latter of whom nodded.

“Why?” Hermione spoke up for the first time. It seemed she’d finally gained the courage to ask questions.

“It’s one of the places highly suspected of being used as a base for the Death Eaters,” said Savage.

“I can confirm it as one. And I expect that’s why I am in this group,” said Severus drily. His left arm seemed to twitch, and Remus longed to reach for it, wrap it in comfort.

Savage nodded. There was a pause in which everyone seemed to draw breath, then Savage pulled out what looked to be a short chain composed entirely of circular handholds. She yanked at it, and ropes that hadn’t been there before elongated between each of the circles; Remus recognized it as a tool for side-alongs in formal circumstances that he’d once seen Tonks use.

Savage held the now long chain out, and it hovered in the air in front of all of them. They grabbed on to each of their handles.

“Hold on,” said Savage, and she turned, whisking the others off with her.

They landed in the middle of a thick fog. Remus looked around and saw that they were only a few feet away from the bank of what must be the moat, its murky water lapping at the slope that led to where they stood.

Everyone pulled their wands out as soon as they landed in an identical movement. It was almost as if they were an already coordinated team.

“I’ll lead the way,” Savage said. They fell into step behind her as she moved; Remus spotted a drawbridge, let down and looking reasonably sturdy. Beyond it, a small castle loomed, a distinctly abandoned look about the place. There could easily be a hundred rooms in that place, Remus thought. 

Savage moved towards the bridge, then paused in front of it, drawing in a breath. She looked over to Severus almost instinctively.

Severus inclined his head and strode forwards without hesitation; when he was next to Savage, he seemed to pause and feel the air for a moment. Then he reached down and pulled his left sleeve up, and something in the air in front of them seemed to burst, as if a bubble had popped. Hermione let out a small gasp beside Remus.

Severus stepped back, and the invisible bubble seemed to seal itself again.

“Will anti-Apparition wards be necessary?” he said, turning to Savage.

She took in the place for a few moments, and nodded.

“Placed around the moat,” she said. “We’ll leave the drawbridge down in case we have a need for backup. One of us will guard the entrance.”

“I shall do that,” Severus said, and Savage inclined her head in acceptance.

They were talking in perfectly calm tones, and Remus himself didn’t feel much fear. He had been ambushed when he had been least expecting it more times than he could count; now that it was him taking part in the raid and he knew what was to come, he felt more or less calm and alert. The two standing next to him, however, looked apprehensive. He saw them exchange a look, and Hermione give a determined sort of nod.

Savage suddenly hissed in what seemed to be either surprise or pain, and pulled an oval object from a pocket.

“Looks like Proudfoot’s team already wrapped up,” she said. “And Tonks’s. We can call backup a bit early, if we want.”

“That would be good,” said Remus, eyeing the two nervous youths beside him. “As it seems this group inside will be a dangerous one.”

Severus met his eyes and he nodded; Savage whipped her wand around and what looked to be a long-legged bird glided out, no doubt carrying a message as it flew off into the distance. Just a few moments later, there were several pops, and Tonks, Proudfoot, and two others who Remus recognized as Lee Jordan and Seamus Finnigan had arrived. Remus only knew Proudfoot from fighting in the most recent battle together; they had taken up close posts during the initial clash. Hermione gave another intake of breath as they arrived, and both she and Michael waved at Seamus.

The older folks exchanged no such greetings.

“Shall we go, then?” said Tonks. _She looks unwell,_ thought Remus. He knew it must be because of her father, and he did not plan on asking her.

“Yes,” said Savage, looking to Severus again, who moved forwards and pulled up his left sleeve once more. The air in front of them burst open, and Severus stood aside.

“With me,” Savage gestured towards Hermione, who moved forwards looking somewhat reassured. Taking the cue, Remus waved at Michael, who moved to walk through with him. He knew Tonks and Proudfoot would be taking on each of the other two behind them. As he passed Severus, almost without thinking he reached out and tugged at his collar, as if to make it a little neater, straighten it out. Severus gave him a surprised look, then a small smile broke across his face again.

As Remus walked across the drawbridge behind Hermione, his wand out and ready, he felt the first surge of the emotion he had thought he should have felt as soon as the war was over. The feeling, now, finally, seemed to clog up in his chest and burst with a sigh; that sheer overwhelming sense of intense, exhilarated relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have a fight coming up and, unfortunately, even more sadness. We have a lot of POV's to wrap up, and we'll get to all of them, but I also promise Severus and Remus will be in every single chapter.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape, Remus Lupin
> 
> If only human interactions weren't as messy as they are.

“One headed out!”

Severus, who had stayed behind to put up the strongest anti-Apparition wards he knew and was the last to enter the building, heard the whizzes and bangs before he’d even fully set foot inside the crumbling castle.

He shot down the masked figure running straight for the exit, who had frozen for half a second too long as they spotted him entering, with a well-aimed Stunner. It was a blessing to be fighting with two feet on the ground, he thought. He had no idea who had been behind the mask, and relief and foreboding clashed and roiled in his insides.

Savage was fighting close to the main entrance where Severus was standing, dueling with a tall, broad-shouldered man. He was wearing Death Eater robes, but not the mask, and Severus recognized him as one of the werewolves of Greyback’s pack. His neck and face were littered with telltale scars, and his hair whipped around as he dodged spells, unkempt and matted.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Savage nimbly ducked aside and the curse hit the stone behind her, losing momentum and fizzling out as it rebounded. Though Severus had his wand aimed and ready, he severely doubted that the Auror would need any assistance in taking the man down, if he were to judge by the sheer lack of prowess he was seeing.

As he had expected, Savage waited it out until another, more benign spell came her way, dodged it instead of shielding, and used the split second it took for the Death Eater to reprepare to shoot a Stunner straight to his middle. The man toppled, landing with surprisingly minimal sound on the apparently sturdy stone floor.

“You should get properly inside,” said Severus, addressing the woman even as his eyes scanned the vicinity for any other opponents approaching. The castle seemed to be much smaller on the inside, its ceiling lower than he’d expected. If people were dueling, he would most probably be able to hear it from the entrance hall. The rest of the building, however, was quiet as of now.

“Yes,” she said. “The others are searching, still. These are the two that were dim enough to run out.” 

She shook her short hair out of her eyes and stood over the Death Eater she had just bested, taking the time to freeze and bind him, as well as the person Stunned by Severus a few moments ago.

“Procedure,” she added, a little quickly, when she caught his gaze. Severus nodded, trying to look as understanding and non-patronizing as possible at the same time.  _ It’s been a long time since I’ve acted based on how others’ emotions would be affected, _ the back of his mind took note. It wasn’t as tedious as he remembered it to be.

“I’ll go ahead, then.”

“A moment,” said Severus, suddenly remembering. He reached inside his robes with his free hand, and pulled out his Death Eater mask. It felt familiar between his fingers, which he hated.  


Savage didn’t stumble in her steps. She merely raised her eyebrows.

“In case I am faced with the need to wear it, and you mistake me for an opponent.”

“You could have mentioned it earlier.”

Severus flipped the mask over in his hand. “It slipped my mind,” he said idly. “I don’t believe I’ll have much use for it.”

For the first time since they had met, something like a smile flashed in Savage’s dark brown eyes.

“You aren’t even nervous, are you?”

Severus gave a half-shrug. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Right.” The Auror paused, and then spoke one last sentence before she turned and ran up a set of spiral stairs, almost as if she were a schoolgirl sprinting away after a risky jab of mischief. Severus watched her go, his eyeline following her movements for a moment. Then he snorted softly to himself, and started to listen intently for the telltale sounds of fighting, yet to travel down to where he stood. 

Her words were echoing inside his head. He felt the same stabs of fear and doubt that he had felt every second he’d thought of a certain person, all this past year. And along with that, a warmth so gentle it was nothing short of terrifying, slowly but surely wrapping its way around his chest.

_ “I’ll look out for your partner, Mr. Snape.” _

* * *

“This is it, then.”

The seven Death Eaters were bound up and their wands had been taken from them, now inside a long side pocket of Proudfoot’s robes, evidently designed for such an occasion. By Wizarding law, all of them had to be brought back to consciousness, which was something of a shame.

“You will  _ never _ reign in all of us,” said a woman in the middle of the row, aiming her glare at Tonks. Severus had seen her trip the Death Eater up with a Body-Bind as she was running to escape during the final few minutes of fighting.

“We caught all you lot, though.”

Michael Corner snorted at the lofty, innocent tone as Severus resisted the urge to turn around and aim a stern glare at Lee Jordan. The boy had always been overly flippant about everything.

“I’ll take them in.” Savage gripped the bonds tightly. The other two Aurors made noises of assent. “You all should return to Hogwarts.”

“We know,” snapped Tonks. Severus had never heard her talk like that. Not even to him. He saw Proudfoot take a step towards Tonks, moving as if to dissuade her from saying anything else. Savage scoffed in a not so subtle manner, before starting to march the Death Eaters out.

Roldolphus Lestrange was near the rear of the line, and his eyes were fixed on Severus; they had been for the past minute. If it was someone who had never met him at the other end of his baleful gaze, they might have been startled by the sheer vitriol they held. But Severus knew those eyes well. Rodolphus had rarely ever made his thoughts known. The poison was always bubbling just under the surface, and when it burst and spilled over it was never through his mouth.

They hadn’t exchanged a word as they duelled, Severus reflected. Though he thought he had heard the masked man, clearly recognizable under the disguise, speak his name in such a low voice it was nearly under his breath. If he had heard correctly, it had not been spoken with hatred, and where others might have been chilled to the bone by the almost apathetic voice, Severus had merely experienced a painful twisting feeling in his chest.

_ “Severus. We all were one.” _

Yerin Savage was wrong about one thing, at least. Severus was always nervous, had been for as long as he could remember. Once, he had been nervous that this man would not consider him acceptable enough. This man with the soft voice pitched low that never failed to draw the listener in, who had tempted slip-ups of Severus’s shields to the degree no amount of advanced Legilimency had ever been able to accomplish. 

For a dozen times too many, a shiver had passed through him whenever Rodolphus had stopped to greet him, during Severus’s very first few months as a Death Eater. And where Azkaban had wiped the beauty from every other face Severus had known, the things that drew the eye to Rodolphus had always been his sunken, haunted eyes and the harsh angles of his face, capturing and pulling one in in a way those gaunt features probably shouldn’t be able to.

He felt someone moving to stand close behind him as Rodolphus passed. He didn’t turn around to see who. He and Rodolphus didn’t look away from each other, turning their heads around with their eyes still locked as the Death Eater was led out of the entrance. Severus felt his heart pounding dull beats of old memories, soaked in guilt.

Rodolphus broke his gaze first, as Savage gave a sharp tug at the bonds and he was jerked forwards. He did not look back again. The group moved out of sight as they walked across the bridge.

Severus grew aware of a hand on his back. Without turning his head, he reached around to find familiar fabric, and he grasped that old, tattered jacket that he knew from touch alone. He could feel several pairs of eyes upon him, and knew that he must look at least half as shaken as he felt. The grip on Remus’s clothes was the only thing that was steadying him; the urge to let his shields take the wheel was stronger than ever.

“Let’s head back, then, shall we?” said Proudfoot. “Everyone who is injured, come with me; the rest, return with T — Dora. Let’s move out of here first, though.”

Severus took note of the apparent change of preferred title, and internally raised his eyebrows.

Lee Jordan and Michael Corner moved forwards to walk behind Proudfoot, the former with a cast on his arm, the other with bandages around his head and torso. The rest followed behind. Acutely aware of the eyes on them, Severus let go of the jacket he’d grabbed to steady himself, and looked up at Remus as they walked side by side across the bridge. Remus’s head turned, and his eyes were swirling with a hundred emotions. 

The fear that he had previously suppressed rose back up ruthlessly. Remus looked hesitant, unsure of how to act. And if Severus had thought the shock from earlier would dissipate into comprehension, now it was clear that he’d been wrong. Remus still looked like he couldn’t bring himself to understand. Remus was never like that; failing to accept what people told him had always been  _ his _ job. 

_ How plainly do I have to put it? _ Or was it that he had read him wrong after all, and Remus was merely upset that he hadn’t been able to shake Severus off with an excuse earlier?  _ That would be much more plausible, _ he thought,  _ I must have misread him somehow. He wants me to let go. _ He looked ahead as he walked, but he couldn’t see anything. He felt like an utter fool.

“Hermione’s hurt too,” said Seamus Finnigan suddenly, as they neared the bridge’s end. It jolted Severus out of his thoughts, and he looked around. Finnigan was pointing at Hermione Granger’s back, at a wound Severus was unable to see.

“What?” Granger craned her head around to try and see for herself. “But I don’t feel anything!”

“It looks deep.” Finnigan sounded almost alarmed.

_ Dark Magic,  _ Severus thought. Before any of the others said a word, he stepped forwards.

“Turn around, Miss Granger.”

Granger, looking startled and steadily more fearful, turned her back to him. Sure enough, there was a tear in her robes that started at the collarbone and dragged diagonally down to her waist. It was obvious from a glance that the wound was not benign, and the blood was seeping out too slowly for it to be a regular cutting spell.

He heard someone gasp from behind him, and saw Granger twitch slightly, as though frightened.

“You shall stay behind with me for a moment, Miss Granger,” he said, in the most calm and cool voice he could manage. Even without his shields, he was satisfied in its convincingness. It would not do for Granger to panic. “You are not in a state to Apparate just now.”

“You can heal it?” said Proudfoot sharply, an edge to his voice that Severus was fairly sure he hadn’t just imagined.

He heard Remus shifting, probably to look around at the Auror. He, too, turned, and Proudfoot looked slightly cowed.

“Yes,” said Severus coolly.

“Let’s all stay behind, then,” said Remus, taking the cue, gesturing at the group Tonks was supposed to take back to Hogwarts.

Severus wasted no time to check Proudfoot’s reaction; he knew Remus would have him covered for the time being. And there was a much more urgent matter at hand.

“Miss Granger,” he said, for lack of a better way to address her. She had turned around again to look around at the group, now looking properly scared, and now met Severus’s eyes.

“A sitting position would be better for you to stay still,” he continued. “Careful not to use your back muscles too much.”

She nodded, looking too afraid to talk, and sat slowly down. Severus moved swiftly around to crouch behind her, and get a better look at the wound.

A quick screening showed the signs of one of the simplest versions of an Oblivion Curse, and he inwardly let out a sigh of relief. He had been rather more worried than he had been willing to let on, but it seemed as though the Death Eater who had used it on her had only the most basic understanding of Dark spells, as he had expected and hoped.

He aimed his wand at her shoulder, and muttered a healing spell as he traced it gradually down to her waist. He could feel the people behind him watching them as he worked. The wound sealed on itself with minimal protest, though it left a long, thin scar behind. After he had finished, he looked over the now closed wound again, looking for any spots he might have missed. Then he mended the fabric of her robes for good measure, and stood.

“It’s healed,” he said. “There is a high possibility of scarring, and to prevent that you’ll need to take Dittany quickly.”

Granger reached behind to pat gingerly at her back, no doubt wanting to make sure of her recovery herself.

“You’re sure she’s going to be alright?” said Tonks sharply from behind him. Severus decided to give her significantly less attitude than he’d just given Proudfoot.

“Yes,” he said, turning to face her, feeling Remus’s clothes brush against his as he did so. “She should be well enough to return.”

Proudfoot had already left with the injured two. Tonks pulled out the Apparition chain and, once it elongated, they all grabbed a handle each. Severus couldn’t help but stare down at Remus’s hand as it grasped the metal circle. As Tonks turned and his surroundings whipped around him, sucking him into blackness, he felt the inevitable talk drawing near, and he suddenly had the urge to just let go of his handle. To land somewhere else, where no one knew him, to sob into silence.

* * *

They made their way back to the Great Hall as a group, Tonks turning back halfway, having gotten a message from the Auror office. She didn’t tell them what the matter was exactly, and even Hermione looked too cowed to ask her why. Remus wondered if he should pull her aside and ask her if she was alright, after everything was over.

When the remaining four had made their way into the Great Hall, Severus addressed Seamus.

“Take Granger to Madam Pomfrey and the Healers, tell them she needs dittany on her back as quickly as possible.”

Seamus and Hermione nodded in unison, and he led her away, towards the back of the hall. Remus noticed Healers had indeed arrived, some wearing their uniforms from St. Mungo’s, bustling about between the thin mattresses where the injured lay.

He felt a tug on his sleeve.

“Outside?” said Severus, quietly.

Remus nodded. His insides felt like they were made of soup. He followed Severus outside the Great Hall, where they made their way down a familiar path until Severus opened the door of the first empty room they came across. He locked the door after Remus, cast a Silencing Charm.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The room was so quiet that Remus could hear both of them breathing.

Then Severus opened his mouth.

“So,” he said, his voice low, “what are we going to do?”

Pretending he didn’t know what Severus was talking about was out the window. Remus sighed.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that we’ll need to think over what we can do, and… and the consequences.”

It was the conclusion he had come to, over the past hour or so. The joyful relief he had felt had not lasted long; it never did.

“Is it that you need that?” Severus said.

Remus looked up at him. Severus’s brow was furrowed, like it had so often done when he was trying to figure Remus out.

“I…”

“Because,” said Severus, “because I don’t.”

“You can’t… We can’t just throw ourselves into this —”

“Is it because of me?”

“What — no,” said Remus vehemently, shaking his head. “No, I’ve already told you it isn’t.”

“Then what do you need to think about?”

“I’ve  _ said, _ my lycanthropy.” He was staring down at the ground as he said it, the words he knew he had to say. “There’s nothing good in associating with werewolves.”

"I already told you —" Severus cut himself off. After a moment of silence, Remus heard him let out a small sigh.

“You know I’m not good with… with this,” he said. “Just… tell me what — what you want to do.”

He had no idea how to answer that in the slightest.  Remus was painfully aware of the fact that he, the indecisive doormat, the cowardly hypocrite, had shifted in his position so many times just these past few hours. He didn’t  _ know _ what to do. How could he, when his mind kept jumping from burning longing to warm comfort to cold fear to stinging guilt, and then back again? They weren’t touching now, but the feel of Severus’s fingers fitting into the spaces between his was too fresh for it to be merely memory. He forcibly stopped himself from looking into Severus’s eyes again, lest he get lost in their depths as he had done so many times before, and make decisions he might regret.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Severus was silent. Remus stared at his midriff, and longed to reach out and pull him closer.

After a while, Severus said, “Alright,” and Remus looked up at last. The crushing uncertainty, that emotion he had thought he’d successfully quelled back on their way to the raid, was back in its full form, taking over the depths of Severus’s eyes. It threatened to eat Remus up whole.

_ It’s not like that. _ He remembered their brief time alone inside the Shack, and felt a want so hot it burned in his throat, for them to turn back time and stay there, for the rest of his days if they could. It wouldn’t matter that the war was ongoing or that Voldemort was still alive or that they were both so terribly broken; they had not had to think about the future, had simply found beacons of comfort in each other. He wished it could be as simple as that.  _ We want to be. _ That should have been enough.

“You want to… give it some time.” Severus’s voice was barely above a whisper.

_ Please. _

“I just think, that, we need to think it over. More carefully.”

“I’ve told you, I don’t.”

“And what if you regret it later?”  _ You’ll hate me for not stopping you sooner, for fooling you into this. You’ll curse me and tell me you should have seen sense. _

“What do  _ you _ want?” said Severus, his voice louder. “Just. Just, tell me.”

Remus paused, exhaled in desperation. If only because he thought Severus should know things like that by now.

_ I want to complain about your stray hairs in the bathroom. I want to see you, groggy-eyed in the morning, squinting at me and irritably telling me to keep it down. I want to get to know the parts of you I can’t stand, and to be comfortable enough to show you the parts of myself that I loathe. I want familiarity and routine and squabbles and long, sprawling hours of nothing but the two of us, until we both talk about how we can’t get away from each other, can’t get a moment alone. Because I don’t want to be alone. I want you. _

Curse the heavens you couldn’t use Legilimency on werewolves.

Remus could feel it slipping away, like it had so many times before. And they had always managed to find each other again somehow, some way, every time. And each time the load had increased on the camel’s back. 

He realized with a jolt that if this moment was the straw that broke it, he just might shatter.

And he knew he still had so many unanswered questions, floating around in his head. If the dam broke tonight, they would become drenched and heavy, and drag him down with them. He would follow his questions to his grave, would never be able to ask another thing of Severus again.

He looked up. Severus was silently watching him, waiting. His hands were shoved deep in his pockets in the folds of his robes. And Remus remembered Severus’s smile, and his hand in his, and  _ “What if I want to be?” _ . Severus didn’t do those things. Never, as long as Remus had known him. But today he had opened it all up, let down his shields... and he had just asked Remus what he wanted. And never before had Remus known so clearly just  _ what _ he wanted — it was just that he had no idea how to say it.

So, of course, he could only give one answer.

“I love you,” he whispered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading; comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, as always!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+Harry Potter, Minerva McGonagall)
> 
> Finding guilt where you're told you shouldn't.

The sun was high in the sky, and the grounds outside were still windy. The birdsong coming from the forest was continuing into early afternoon, though not quite as obnoxiously loud as it had been during early morning. The grass was rippling in the strong breeze, and the Whomping Willow swayed as if it, too, was enjoying the weather.

If one kept their eyes on the grounds, they might just be convinced that everything was as usual.

Inside the Great Hall, most families of the deceased had sat down around the stretchers that carried their loved ones, as if keeping the bodies company. They sat there in silence, with their heads resting on each other's shoulders. Some people who had no relation to any one of those lost walked up next to the bodies that were lying solitary, and crouched down next to them.

Hermione Granger had dragged her black-haired friend who she had dragged everywhere for the past seven years next to one such body.

“I didn’t recognize him at first either,” she said, at Harry’s intake of breath.

Up close, Harry couldn’t see how he hadn’t been able to identify him before. The brown hair in a bowl cut around his face, his noticeably big ears, the blue robes of Ravenclaw, and the thick silver-and-blue ring he’d always worn on his left hand.

He all but fell to his knees at Terry Boot’s feet, and Hermione sat herself down next to him. There had been perpetual tears in his friend’s eyes ever since they had met up again after the raids ended. Meeting Hermione’s gaze was almost a shock, after the sight of the unrecognizably mangled face that had once held round grey eyes and a button nose.

He opened his mouth, his own vision starting to blur as well. Hermione shook her head, and took his hand in hers, squeezed.

They sat like that for a while. After a few minutes, Harry pointed to Terry’s side.

“The D.A. coin,” he said. The Galleon, distinguishable as fake if you knew where to look, had slid halfway out of the pocket of Terry’s robes.

Hermione spotted it, said “Oh,” and started to sob. Her hand was covering her mouth, and she looked stricken. Harry was suddenly overwhelmed by guilt; he hadn’t thought about what she’d make of it, he’d just been surprised. He remembered Ron silently reprimanding him after he’d been terribly insensitive about Mad-Eye’s death. Wondered if Ron would have given him the same look as he had back then, in a small room in the Burrow, when everyone lying in this hall had still been alive.

If anyone should be crying their eyes out over Terry Boot’s dead body, it was him. The memories of the fallen he’d known were grappling with his insides and pushing into his chest. If he’d done something different, acted more quickly — a thousand thoughts ran through his mind. If he hadn’t gone to Godric’s Hollow, if he’d had a solid plan from the start, if he’d realized where the diadem was sooner, if if if.

But the tears that did come didn’t do much more than brim in his eyes. Only about thirty minutes ago, Hermione had gripped his shoulders tightly, forcing him to face her.

“They didn’t die because of you,” she had said firmly, while tears ran down her cheeks, and Ron’s screaming cries echoed all through the hall. “So don’t you  _ dare _ blame yourself.”

_ Easy for you to say, _ he’d thought, the same words he’d said to her a thousand times before. He hugged her trembling form tight, and contemplated trying not to let himself think that it was all his fault.

* * *

“We need someone looking at the damage down in the dungeons as well.”

“I’ll do it,” said Minerva McGonagall, perhaps too quickly.

Everyone around her seemed to have realized what she was thinking of. Horace looked moroseful; she’d always hated that, hated grief on her behalf. It was  _ her _ sorrow.

Filius spoke after a beat.

“Alright,” he said, in that usual cordial, matter-of-fact tone that nevertheless conveyed a firm denial on any off-topic discussions, “then Minerva will make a trip down there, and I’ll take the higher parts of the West wing, if it’s alright with you all.”

“I’ll manage the area around my house as well, then,” Pomona chimed in. Her arms and torso were even dirtier than usual. “Hagrid, could you take the third and fourth floors?”

Hagrid nodded. “Will do, Professor Sprout.”

“So we fix what we can and report anything that might need additional help?” said Filius, as if he was making sure of the conclusion at the end of a staff meeting.

There was a pause, and Minerva realized the question had been addressed to her.

“Yes,” she said, braving an attempt at her usual no-nonsense tone.

“We heard reports from the first rounds that there’s a bit of a nasty pileup of rocks in the East side of the dungeons,” Pomona said after another short pause. She was looking straight at Minerva. “You’d better go down there now, Minerva; we’ll decide on who’s dealing with the rest of the areas.”

“Yes,” Minerva said again.  _ Thank you. _ “Yes, I suppose I should.”

And she turned right to the broad staircase leading downstairs, hearing talk start up again behind her.

The people who had made the initial rounds had included not just Hogwarts staff but volunteers. Minerva had been looking around the fifth floor when she’d heard shouts from behind her, and ran back down the hallway to find Justin Finch-Fletchley retching with his back to a corpse. She had lifted the body from the rubble and laid it on a stretcher with her wand, covered it with a long cloth, and called for Pomona.

The stout witch had bustled up from the floor below and made a beeline for her student, signaling to Minerva that it was alright to leave. She’d levitated the body down to the Great Hall, where she handed it over to a young Auror for identification.

“It’s badly mangled.”

The Auror, who must not be much older than Finch-Fletchley was, had peeled back the cloth with no hesitation, saw it, and said, “It’s not that bad. It will be identifiable; no worries, Professor.”

And for the second time in her life, she had been hit with the realization that she had nothing to say to these youths, who had rubbed shoulders with war before they had even finished school. Who were infinitely more than she had ever been.

Familiarity led her feet down the twisting and turning path without her having to think much about it. When she had heard from Hagrid that most of those who had gone to the raids were back, a low, fast-paced drum had started up in her chest that hadn’t quietened since. She needed to find the man. Needed to speak to him. But, she realized as she walked down a narrow set of stairs and sidestepped rubble, for the first time in a long while, she had absolutely no clue what she needed to say.

* * *

The man in question was rummaging through cupboards and throwing expired bottles out, muttering under his breath.

He already had most of what he needed on his brewing table in the next room, but he had always found going through his stores a good distraction. He needed time to gather his thoughts.

Remus was back in his main office, probably sitting at his desk, looking over the ingredients laid out on the other table. Or perhaps digging through his desk drawers looking for leftover snacks. Remus never seemed to care about things like expiration dates. “Tastes fine,” he would say, shaking the bag of chips Severus couldn’t even remember getting. It used to drive him spare sometimes.

He’d escaped into the storage room to ease the tension a bit. They were currently in a bit of an awkward phase where they couldn’t quite meet each other’s eyes.

He sighed, and opened the small wooden door, backing out of the room, hunched over and dragging the box of useless ingredients with him.

“You could just levitate that.”

A laugh escaped him. It sounded happy, and it nearly stole his breath away. “Well, obviously I’ve committed to this,” he said.

He heard movement from behind him, and had a moment to prepare himself. Strands of straw-coloured hair appeared in his line of vision and he felt Remus’s breath on his cheek, arms around his shoulders.

“Let me. You’ll pull something.”

“You act like I’ll break my back from dragging a box across the room.”

“Come here,” Remus breathed.

Severus let go of the box — the bottles inside it clinked loudly — and turned his head towards the source of Remus’s voice. They crouched down on the stone floor together, leaning towards each other until their foreheads touched.

“I really need to get started,” Severus muttered.

“On the potion?”

“Mm.”

A large, calloused hand on the side of his face. “You told me that it takes only one full day. You lectured me about ‘difficult’ not meaning ‘tedious’.”

That had been  _ years _ ago. “You want me to risk being late?” he managed. He could almost feel Remus’s long eyelashes brushing against his as they fluttered.

“Thought I’d have forgotten that, did you?” Remus let out a low chuckle, and his arm tugged at Severus’s robes, pulling him even closer. He was almost sitting on the other man’s lap now.

“Can’t fault me for hoping.”

They kissed, for the first time since on the stairs on their way down to the Great Hall. Severus had just gripped the back of Remus’s head, fingers threading through thick, greying hair, when a knock on the door sounded.

Jumping apart and hastily standing up, they looked to the door and to each other and back.

‘Minerva,’ Severus mouthed.

“How can you tell?” Remus’s voice was hushed.

Severus shrugged.  _ Three knocks; two quickly, then one a beat later. _ He looked down at his clothes as he attempted to smooth his hair into its usual state. Remus himself was patting the back of his head as if making sure it wasn’t obviously rumpled, adjusting his robes.

The person standing outside knocked again, with the same rhythm. There was no mistaking it. And Severus wasn’t ready.

He turned to Remus again, who was looking rather anxious.

“You have to speak with her sooner or later,” he whispered.

Severus sighed quietly. His insides were twisting, but Remus was right; he did have to do it eventually, and he’d never been one to procrastinate. If only she had come at a more convenient time, then he and Remus might have had a chance to — no, this was no time for indecent thoughts. 

“Alright,” he said under his breath.

Remus nodded, encouraging him, as he turned towards the door.

“Enter,” he called.

The door opened, and Minerva McGonagall stood in the narrow candlelit corridor. She hadn’t changed into different robes, though they looked significantly less dirty and frayed than they had in the Great Hall. The light in the corridor was much brighter than in the office, and it almost cast her face completely into shadow. Severus saw her glancing from him to Remus to the rest of office, looking more uncertain than he’d ever seen her.

“Minerva,” said Remus, as if on cue. “Come in. Severus had graciously agreed to make wolfsbane for my next transformation, and he was just starting the brewing.”

One might wonder who he was trying to fool, when the two of them stood that close together a good few feet away from the brewing table, and the cauldron hadn’t even been put over a fire yet. But Severus knew what Remus was doing, and he made his way to the old wooden table as Professor McGonagall stepped into the office.

_ “Having Potions to brew all the time has its benefits,” _ he’d once said, years and years before.  _ “Especially more complicated ones.” _

_ “Let me guess, because you can just pretend to be busy when you want to avoid talking to someone?” _

Remus had been in a long bathrobe, and it had been three in the morning. That was the first time Remus had spent the whole night in his company. _He remembers it too,_ Severus thought. _Maybe as clearly as I do._

Professor McGonagall opened her mouth, still looking unsure of what to do. “I was making the rounds for damages in the dungeons,” she said slowly. Her voice shook, but only slightly.

“Ah,” said Remus, “This office is fine.” He made a few steps forward from where he’d been standing. “Would you like me to make some rounds, see what I can do?”

McGonagall blinked, then said, “Yes. Thank you.”

“Alright.” Remus passed her, walking to the open door. “I’ll start from this wing and turn north.”

“Yes,” Professor McGonagall said again. Remus smiled warmly, and sent a nod Severus’s way before walking out into the corridor, shutting the door behind him. Remus really was moving out of the way for Severus’s uncomfortable conversations a lot just this past day.

Severus had begun working on the potion already. If he was short on ingredients, he probably wouldn’t have actually started — as it was, he had at least a few months’ worth on each. Even if he managed to make a complete mess of it, he could just start again with little trouble.

After a few moments, when he had just started to wonder if he would need to open the talk, he heard Minerva’s voice from a few feet in front of him.

“I see you’ve changed into,” she paused, “your old robes.”

He had. They’d been in his closet just a door away, and he’d pulled them on. They were much less heavy than the many-layered robes he’d worn for teaching. He’d stopped wearing them out of his private quarters for a long time now; he was rather surprised that she remembered.

“Yes,” he said, smoothing down the sleeves as though acknowledging them. “You haven’t had the time yet, I gather.”

He hadn’t looked up at her, instead busying himself with the ingredient preparations. He wasn’t sure if he’d be able to bring himself to look into her eyes, as she said the things he feared she would say.

“No, I haven’t, I’m afraid.” A pause. “I must speak to you about what happened.”

“I imagine you do.” He was chopping up willow leaves, and he hadn’t meant to say the words that harshly. He sounded angry.

“Severus.” The voice was low, a pleading note in it that he hadn’t heard in a long time.

“Yes.”

“Severus, please.”

He swept the leaves into the water, turned the fire down. Then he slowly raised his head.

He was startled to see her eyes watering. She stood there in the dim light of the windowless office, wringing her hands, a lost look in her eyes. It reminded him of distraught affairs, and worries evaporating over exchanged looks and some good banter.

_ “Coward,” _ she had shouted as he fled, just a few hours before.

“What is it, Professor McGonagall?”

“Severus,” she said again, as if that would turn everything back to the way they had once been, as though if Severus called her by  _ her _ first name they could continue with that amused game of vendetta like they’d never stopped, mere House rivalry with nothing else weighing it down.

He didn’t say anything.

“I owe you… more than an apology.” Her voice was trembling. “I should have… known better, than to —”

“There’s no need.” An inexplicable anger — how was it that she could apparently see a way out of this, when his own hopes of that had been dashed months upon months ago? Did she not remember the things that had passed between them the past year? Did she think that damage was reparable? “It was crucial that the role was convincing to everyone. It is not a thing to apologize for.”

“I should have known better,” she said. Hearing her voice kept jerking him back to the past year, and he wished she would just stop talking for a bit, so he could quell the hurt and fury burning his insides. Severus pulled the small bundle of wolfsbane towards him, and resisted saying,  _ You should have. _

“There is no need,” he repeated instead.

“I —” He heard her take a deep breath. “What could I do?”

He raised an eyebrow, without looking up. “About what, might I ask?”

“You know what I am saying.” A touch of the old stern note was in her tone, but it was marred by the shaking voice. “What can I do to — to mend what has broken? Whatever it is, I — I can do it. I will.”

Severus took a moment to answer. 

“Nothing has been broken,” he said. He wondered if he was taking this too far. His voice was cold. “There is nothing to mend.”

There was silence, except for the sound of knife on wood, as he crushed some of the wolfsbane up with the flat of the blade. He had remarkably not messed it up yet.

The quiet stretched on, and he wondered if she had left the room without making a noise. Then he heard what sounded like a muffled gasp.

“I am so sorry.” The words were nearly unintelligible, and he looked up despite himself. Professor McGonagall’s eyes were shut tight, her hands covering her mouth, hunched a little as she shook. He had never seen her lose her composure like this. “I am so sorry, Severus.” Another shuddering intake of breath. “Please.”

He didn’t know what to say. So he stood there, gripping his knife tightly, staring at her. He hadn’t expected this. He had thought she would state a curt apology and leave.

After a few more moments, filled with muffled sobs that rang in Severus’s ears, Minerva McGonagall turned. She made her way shakily to the door, and as the light streamed in from the corridor outside, Severus felt a brief impulse to call her back. But the door swung shut behind her as the words died on his lips; seeing that back he knew so well, that had been turned to him in scorn just a few days earlier, made him lose his voice in another wave of aching anger. There was a small click as the door closed, just as the mixture in the cauldron bubbled and spilled over the rim.

* * *

Elsewhere, the door to a house with a little front lawn opened, and a mother saw her daughter standing in the bright sunlight.

The young woman’s hair was blond. If it had been a different time, she might have contemplated changing it; the colour made her look rather peaky.

“The war’s over,” she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, thanks for reading! I just wanted to say that it's honestly such a joy to come back to this each week, and even more so when I see people are enjoying it, so thank you all.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome and I greatly appreciate it :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+ Luna Lovegood)
> 
> Maybe it would be better if we all accepted that finding old places again often include rebuilding them.

The first fire started up on the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest. The flames rose unnaturally high, and brilliantly orange tongues shot high above the trees, before coiling into themselves and dropping straight back down. They were clearly of magical origin.

The shouts of several people running inside from the grounds alerted those in the Great Hall, and most of them jumped up, reaching for their wands as they turned.

Luna heard someone shout, “What’s going on?” She stood up, heart plummeting, and looked to Neville, who had also risen from his seat.

“Fire in the Forest!” another voice yelled.

_ Oh,  _ thought Luna.  _ So it isn’t that the Death Eaters are back. _ She saw Neville looking at the three people sitting at the far end of the table next to theirs, narrow-eyed. Draco Malfoy had shakily risen from his seat, where he’d been hunched in for the past hour. His mother was tugging at his arm.

_ He’s panicking. _ Luna wondered if there was anything she could do.  _ Maybe he’s afraid of fire. _ The three Malfoys looked considerably worse than they had back when she had been held hostage in their manor, and even back then she’d thought they looked unwell.

“Let’s see what’s going on,” said Neville, gesturing towards the doors.

“A lot of people went outside,” she said. Harry and Hermione had disappeared from next to the body of Terry Boot. “I think some people should stay here. Keep everyone company, you know.”

Neville eyed her for a moment.

“You can go if you want,” Luna continued. “But I’m going to stay.”

“Alright,” he said, after a second. “I’ll just see what’s happening and I’ll be right back, okay? I’ll bring the news.”

Luna nodded, smiling. Smiling always helped.

She watched Neville make his way across the hall, amidst a small crowd of people running to the doors, until he vanished from view. Then she sat down, glancing again at the family of three. Draco had sat back down, but as she watched, he shot up again from his seat, and this time started striding toward the double doors. 

Luna had never understood people who wanted to witness things that scared them. She’d said that to Ginny once.

“It’s comforting in a way,” she’d said. They had been crouched in an alcove, hiding from the Carrows. It was one of Luna’s happier memories.

She had made her way to the end of the next table before she’d fully realized what she was doing. The two parents looked to be arguing with each other, Mrs. Malfoy having stood up from the table herself.

“I don’t think it would be a good idea to follow him out,” she said. The two turned to her. Both faces went blank with what Luna thought must be the shock of recognition. It was understandable; the last time they had met, Luna had been bound in ropes and tossed in the cellar.

“I’ve heard sometimes people need to see their fears for themselves,” she continued. “That it’s comforting in a way. And parents are apparently more of a hindrance than a help in most situations.”

_ Well, _ she thought,  _ I wouldn’t know.  _ But it was Ginny’s words, and she supposed Ginny’s words would be solid enough advice for anyone. She turned her back on their frozen faces and made her way back to her seat. 

Soon afterwards, Neville returned.

“It was Dumbledore’s phoenix,” he said, panting slightly as he approached her. “The Aurors who went to investigate found a Hogsmeade resident there, injured. She’s been sent to St. Mungo’s.”

“He’s Professor Snape’s phoenix now,” Luna answered. 

Neville blinked.

“Yeah, yeah, I suppose he is,” he said.

The tale of the red-and-gold phoenix having healed Severus Snape’s injuries from a deadly attack from Lord Voldemort’s snake had spread throughout those inside the Great Hall, shortly after the war had ended. It fit in rather nicely with the shocking reveal of the man’s true loyalties that everyone had just witnessed, which Luna thought must be why people were so quick to believe the story.  _ Maybe that’s why people wouldn’t accept the existence of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks. Because it didn’t fit nicely with anything already there. _

“I’m glad they found her,” said Luna.

“Me too.” Neville still sounded slightly out of breath. “She was badly hurt, couldn’t move. It might have been dangerous if she’d stayed there any longer.”

“It’s hurtful, how time works, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” said Neville. The way he looked at her suggested that maybe that wasn’t what people said, in these situations. Maybe it was inappropriate, or just strange, which was what a lot of people called her. Luna made a mental note of it. She still hadn't quite managed to work out the boundary of things people normally said.

Word had always traveled faster than Luna could keep up with. Over the next thirty minutes, she and Neville managed to wave over Harry, Hermione, Dean and Oliver Wood to their table. And from all the news that had reached their ears, Luna gathered that several other fires had started up, mostly in the Forbidden Forest and in Hogsmeade.

“They don’t do any damage,” said Hermione. “They act like wand sparks, and as soon as people get there, they vanish.”

Oliver Wood, who had acquired bottles of water and butterbeer from the kitchens, passed them around as she spoke.

“I’ll hand some of them out to the families, if that’s alright with you, Oliver?” said Dean.

“Yeah, that’d be great, thanks.” Oliver pulled out several bottles of water and started stacking them onto Dean’s outstretched arms.

At Dean’s mention of families, Luna looked over to the place where the Malfoys were sitting again. Draco was back, and was sitting across the table from his parents now. They all seemed to be looking downwards, avoiding one another’s eyes.

It seemed she hadn’t been the only one who had looked the Malfoys’ way. Neville’s eyes narrowed.

“Why haven’t they been captured yet?” he muttered.

“Azkaban’s overflowing, from what I've heard,” said Seamus Finnigan from behind them. He’d appeared out of nowhere, and gestured to Dean, taking some of the load off him. “I’ll help. They’re for the families of the people lost, right?”

Luna hadn’t caught that. Maybe that was what Dean had meant by ‘families’.  _ People understand each other.  _ Her mother had understood people. She had told Luna about it, back when Luna had been eight years old.

About nine years had passed since then. And it was times like these when she suddenly realized that she still needed her mother beside her. Her heart clenched, and she smiled vaguely. That had always helped.

“Besides,” said Hermione to her left, “they haven’t got wands on them.”

“They might try to steal someone’s,” said Dean, his expression souring. “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Would it really be stealing if they took this?” Harry was holding out a wand that wasn’t his. “It’s technically Draco’s wand.”

Luna had known it must be Draco’s; she could feel it.

“You’re not thinking of giving it  _ back _ ,” said Neville.

“Dunno,” said Harry, frowning.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” said Dean. “You’ve been  _ locked in their cellar _ with us.” He nodded at Luna, his arms full of water bottles.

“Maybe the wand deserves to be back in the possession its true owner,” Luna piped up, and all heads turned to her.

“Harry took the wand from Malfoy,” said Neville. “He defeated him.”

Hermione opened her mouth, and Luna knew she was about to point out why she was wrong. She suddenly regretted speaking.

“But it’s not _truly_ Harry’s,” Hermione said. “Only the wand he first bought from Ollivander really follows him; none of the other wands he's tried work nearly as well.”

Luna blinked.

“We’ll be back.” Seamus inclined his head towards Dean, and they started walking across the hall, towards the wall of stretchers. As they went, Neville spoke up again.

“Weren’t we talking about the Malfoys’ arrest?”

“I don’t know,” said Oliver Wood, who had sat down after pushing glasses of drinks towards everyone. “I’m sure the Aurors are aware and are taking care of it. Besides, they don’t look like they’re about to make a run for it anytime soon, does it?”

A few of them turned around to look at the Malfoys again, just as another commotion started up in the hall.

“Fire from the Forest again,” muttered Harry, as echoing shouts rang out. “D’you reckon we should go?” He directed the question at Hermione.

“I figure you two can sit down for a moment.” Oliver Wood stood. “All of you, actually. You all look exhausted. I’ll go give some help if it’s needed, yeah?”

They all muttered their thanks, and he gave them a smile before running off.

They sat in silence for a few moments after that, all in various stages of exhaustion, wrung out and relieved and grieving. Luna was grateful for the silence. Her gaze wandered around all of them, at the old faces she could draw from memory.  _ Friends.  _ Maybe she would ask them one day, if it was okay if she called them that. She liked being with people; that was one thing everyone seemed to get wrong about her.

_ Maybe it’s wrong to be happy, when Dad’s still missing, and so many people have died. _

After a while, she saw Neville turning to her out of the corner of her eye, and looked up at him.

“I wonder why the phoenix is spending its time going around, alerting people like this,” he said quietly. "When he was Dumbledore's, wasn't he just sitting in Dumbledore's office most of the time?”

"Well," she said, "Professor Dumbledore must have valued having him close. Phoenixes are very good with catching their owners' wants."  


"Yeah," said Neville, "I thought he’d be at Snape’s side or something, you know, like he was with Dumbledore."  


Luna looked at him. She’d thought the reason for that would have been obvious by now. But then, maybe that wasn't one of the things that fit nicely with what people already knew.  


“He’s doing his work,” she said.

* * *

“We’re taking the four buildings starting from… Honeydukes, then,” said Ernest Macmillan, counting the buildings.

“Shall we go?” said Remus, and Susan Bones nodded from his right.

The wind whistling through the village, coupled with the sight of every other building crumbling or damaged, gave Hogsmeade the look and feel of a ghost town, long abandoned. Remus still recognized the place as sharply as he would have from a picture taken a year before. It added to the small shocks rippling through his heart, every time he saw a sign he recognized, or an old shop burnt to the ground.

Nevertheless, the sky was blue, and the cool air he breathed in gave at least the illusion of the absence of burden. He had helped Severus clean up the mess from the ruined potion just before coming here.

“It’s fine,” Severus had said. Remus had shaken him,  _ don’t,  _ and then they had kissed next to the disfigured cauldron. Lips meeting teeth and Severus’s hands in his hair, the remnants of the potion fumes still lingering around them.

“I need to start again,” Severus said afterwards. “I have enough ingredients, so you don’t have to worry.”

Remus had resisted the urge to grab him by the shoulders and shake him again. Instead he’d said, “I won’t. You know I won’t.”

Then he’d decided he would be more help outside volunteering than he would be if he stayed here. The questions he still held in his head, the things he wanted to talk about, threatened to spill out of him every additional second he spent looking at Severus, and he didn’t want to be the cause of another cauldron becoming unusable.

“Maybe we’ll get to talk more after I’m back?” he’d said, as he headed out of the dimly lit office. Severus had nodded, his hands temporarily stalling from chopping up willow leaves. Remus had waved, gesturing for him to continue, before closing the door behind him.

Ernie Macmillan and Susan Bones were rather close. From what he remembered, they were in the same year in Hufflepuff, and had been a part of a group of gossiping students that Ernie had looked to be the leader of. Remus had never known what Severus had meant by “You acquire an eye for those things,” until he had experienced teaching himself.

They arrived in front of Honeydukes, which was one of the more intact shops. There was no one inside, as far as Remus could tell.

He realized that both Ernie and Susan were looking to him, waiting for his call.

“Should we start with those with more damage?” he suggested, pointing to the left of Honeydukes, where a badly burned residence stood. Smoke was still escaping from an upper window.

They both nodded, and Remus led the way into the building.

What had first been an awkward sense of distance between himself and the two young adults became a much more relaxed rapport faster than Remus could have hoped. He was grateful; he knew the two of them must know of his condition, and was surprised that they showed no indication of fear or even curiosity about it.

“We heard you multiple times on Potterwatch,” said Ernie, as they were looking through the second house they went into, fixing what they could. Susan Bones made an affirmative noise.

“Did you?”

“Yes,” he said. “That program helped a lot, especially the segment you did. Later in the year, D.A. members crowded around the radio to listen every time it was on.”

“I’m glad,” said Remus. He hadn’t been sure whether his old students would recognize his voice. 

“You were a fantastic Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, by the way,” Ernie continued. “A real shame you had to leave.”

He looked suddenly shifty after saying it. Remus smiled.

“Thank you,” he said, and the Hufflepuff seemed to relax again.

After putting out a fire, straightening out a building that had nearly folded in half, and Ernie attempting to regain his composure after a bad scare from a rat that had scuttled out from under a floorboard, they found themselves in front of Honeydukes again, with Susan still chortling at Ernie’s indignance. Remus looked down the street and saw that most of the worse damage had been repaired. The street was slowly starting to resemble the bustling village it had been before. Another wave of relief washed over him.

“What will you do after all this, do you think?” he heard Ernie ask Susan, as they walked into the shop, wands out and looking around.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I haven’t thought about it yet. What about you?”

“I want to continue my education,” said Ernie.

“At Hogwarts?”

“Probably,” he said, “though I might look into other options. But if most of the old teachers are still there, I think I’ll just go back. I’m sure they’ll re-educate all the students from this year.”

“I don’t know,” said Susan again. “I’m kind of sick of Hogwarts, to be honest. This last year really… I don’t want to come back.”

Remus heard them talk as he looked through and straightened several shelves. The truth was, he felt just as unsure as Susan Bones sounded about what he was going to do. Everything he had done before, all the thankless jobs he’d gone through and the work he’d done for the Order, seemed utterly useless. Like he had to start again, at the age of thirty-eight.

He’d never been naive enough to hope for a robust career or a bright future, but now, without a war consuming his thoughts, he realized just how lost he really was. He’d spent all of his adult life floating, suspended between what he knew he could be capable of and the limitations his lycanthropy had brought. The only thing holding him steady had been…

He sighed. On top of everything else, he now had one more topic he needed to discuss with Severus. The longing to see him again clashed with the dread of what their talk would bring. He didn’t even know where to start. All he knew was the overwhelming relief and warmth that filled him every time he’d looked at him since they’d reunited in the Shrieking Shack. 

“I love you,” he had said, and Severus had not said it back, and he supposed he was idiotic for feeling even a slight dose of doubt over it. When Severus was making the wolfsbane potion for him down in the dungeons at this very moment.

“The ingredients are all there, they aren’t out of date yet,” he’d said, when Remus knew some of the rarer ingredients for the potion went bad after several weeks. That had always been Severus’s way of saying things. It used to drive Remus up the wall. Now it made him want to run all the way back down to the dungeons, hold the thin, familiar frame tight, and tell him _ I love you too _ . Over and over again, until the day Severus might actually believe it.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were lots of minor people in this chapter. I wanted to give an idea of what some old faces were up to, as well as expanding the scope of the aftermath beyond the few main characters. I hope seeing Oliver Wood and Ernie Macmillan again was enjoyable; writing them felt like a friendly wave.
> 
> Comments and kudos are always welcome and greatly appreciated :) Thank you so much for reading!


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+ Ron Weasley)
> 
> When thoughts become heavy.

The wind died down shortly before the sun set.

The Great Hall was lit with thousands of floating candles in the absence of sunlight, like they had been when Ron had first set foot inside it. He looked up at the ceiling, and remembered the seated rows of tall students in uniforms of black, and a raggedy hat on a small stool.

Seamus Finnigan had dropped by earlier, arms half-full of water bottles.

“Are they from the kitchens?” Ron had asked. He thought he recognized them from his various trips down there. He’d always wondered why there even were water bottles stocked in the kitchens.

“Yeah.” Seamus nodded at Ron to take them. “Wood brought them up — you know, Oliver Wood?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” said Ron, taking the bottles. “But we could have just cast an Aguamenti.”

Seamus had looked at him for a moment, before shrugging. And Ron could see that he knew. 

He hadn’t said anything like “I’m sorry for your loss,” and for that Ron felt a gratitude he didn’t know how to explain. For everything he remembered about Seamus Finnigan, every petty grudge he’d held, Ron had always been aware of how tactful he was. That was one of the things he’d resented him for. 

_Ill thought under moonlight becomes curse by sunrise._ His past self felt so insignificant now, so stupid. A part of him had wanted to reach out and grasp Seamus’s sleeve as he moved past, carrying the rest of the bottles. To tell him everything he’d thought about him, that Seamus probably didn’t even know about, to apologize for it all. Maybe that would make him feel better.

He’d always been completely useless at apologizing.

“You tired?” said Bill, to his left.

The two of them were sitting some distance away from Fred, perched on the edge of one of the long benches. George and Ginny were still sitting close by the stretcher, Ginny’s head on her brother’s shoulder. Their father, who had returned a few hours earlier, had roped Percy and Charlie into helping make some changes to the castle.

“What changes?” Percy had asked, while Charlie had jumped up almost at once.

“To accommodate the people who will be temporarily residing in the castle,” he had answered.

 _Does that include us?_ Ron knew it must; from what he’d heard from Bill, their house had turned into little more than a hideout over the past year. And in any case, leaving Fred was out of the question.

They hadn’t talked about Fred much, though Ron wondered what they would have to do. He’d gone to enough family funerals to have a vague idea of the process, but he’d never paid much attention to it. Besides, their father had told him not to worry as he’d left.

 _“We’ll take care of it,”_ he had said to Ron, after he’d pulled his youngest son aside and had managed to sufficiently calm him. By ‘we’, Ron could tell he was talking about himself and Bill.

And now he looked around at Bill, who was taking a sip from one of the water bottles Seamus had given them earlier. It was still nearly full.

“Yeah, maybe?” He shrugged; his shoulders were stiff and he wasn’t sure if the gesture came across. “I dunno.”

Bill pushed a plate towards him. “Bread.”

“I’ve told you, I’m not hungry.”

“That was an hour ago, and you haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“ _You_ haven’t eaten anything all day.”

“Yeah I have.” Bill gestured at the plate he’d just shoved towards Ron. “I ate that.”

Despite the convincingness of his tone, Bill was a good enough liar that Ron was still skeptical. But the look his oldest brother shot him had him reaching reluctantly for the loaf. He bit into it; it was warm and delicious and Ron hated himself.

“When will Mum be back?” he asked after a minute. Bill was still watching him closely, and he found that gave him the push he needed to keep on eating.

“Soon,” said Bill firmly.

A short blond Auror who had introduced himself as Gregory Proudfoot had come to fetch Molly Weasley a short while before. He’d talked to her and Bill before leading her out of the hall, and Ron had grabbed Bill as soon as they had left, demanding to know where she was going.

 _“The Ministry,”_ Bill had said warily, and Ron had gone silent for a good few minutes afterwards.

“What’s she gone to do?” Ron asked now, before he tore another piece of bread with his teeth.

Bill looked relieved, perhaps that Ron had gotten the emotional strength back enough that he could ask that question.

“It’s about the trial,” he answered. “Proudfoot told us not to worry, that it will be held but it’ll just be procedure. It’s like I told you, it’ll be fine.”

Ron sighed, and nodded. After a beat, Bill shifted in his seat, and held out his arms. Ron saw that he was crying. He hugged Bill as he let his own tears fall again, felt his brother’s hands grip his back tightly as if to make sure he was there. A part of him was surprised at the fact that he still had tears to spare.

After a while, Fleur returned. Ron knew that she had been to help deal with some fires, but not much else. He hadn’t asked.

“I think I could do with a walk,” he told them both. He returned Fleur’s hesitant hug before moving away from the corner of the hall he’d been in for several hours. He felt Bill’s hand on his back as he left, and it comforted him.

He spotted Harry and Hermione quickly enough, and made his way over to where they were sitting, along with a few others.

“Hey,” he called, when he was close enough. Harry had already seen him approaching, and almost everyone at the table stood up as he reached it.

None of them said anything about Fred, or about the redness Ron knew must be in his eyes. He was grateful for it, and he hugged Harry and Hermione, said hello to Dean, Seamus, Luna, and Anthony Goldstein.

As they settled down again, Luna promptly launched into a tale, of a time she had seen the unmistakable trail of the Three-Legged Bird of legend while on a trek through a forest in Scotland. It seemed that Ron had joined the table in the middle of the story, and he vaguely wondered what the Three-Legged Bird was and why it was apparently such a big deal. That was one thing he had liked about hearing Luna talk; you’d always end up wondering about something or other.

He succeeded in not thinking of either Fred or his mother’s trial for a good half an hour after that. Then, while they were listening to Anthony Goldstein argue with Luna over the essence of Vanished objects, the grief and fear hit him like a tidal wave again without warning, and he got up quickly as he excused himself.

He strode out of the hall, trying to breathe, as his chest constricted and his vision blurred. He walked over to a stone wall and crouched down, his back against the marble, and squeezed his eyes shut.

He heard footsteps close by, and then a soft grunt as someone sat themself down next to him. After a few moments, he looked around and saw Seamus Finnigan.

“Harry and Hermione thought it would be best if they left you alone,” he said, without preamble. He was gazing ahead, as if he was talking to himself. “But I thought you might need someone to just talk. It always helped me.”

“Yeah?” Ron managed, after a beat. “When?”

Seamus shrugged. “From time to time. And a few months back, when I was, you know. When my mam died.”

Ron blinked, and stared.

“Oh,” said Seamus. “You didn’t hear? Well, yeah. It happened a few months ago. Nothing to do with the war, just… an illness. And I couldn’t get out of school.”

Ron said nothing. Seamus sounded calm.

“And I liked it when someone sat next to me for a while,” he continued. “And talked about other stuff, you know, stuff that’d take my mind off things. Because otherwise I’d be… You know, ‘cause I couldn’t do anything about it.”

And Ron nodded. Because he did know.

 _I’m sorry,_ he thought.

And Seamus sat next to him and droned on and on about absolutely nothing, until they saw a blond man leading a red-haired woman into the entrance hall. Seamus stood with him as Ron jumped up, and fell back as he made his way towards his mother. When Ron turned around after the two of them had exchanged a tearful hug, he was gone.

Ron continued to move in and out of grief after that, suddenly doubling over into a gasping mess several more times, in between stages of a numb sort of quiet. And a few hours later, the whole family converged again on the corner of the Great Hall where Fred’s body lay.

It took quite a bit of convincing from Bill for their mother to agree to leave Fred’s body in the Hall for the night, under the protection of Aurors and the volunteers from St. Mungo’s. Their father led them down a path Ron recognized as the one down to the kitchens, and they crowded into the Hufflepuff common room where they would spend the night, and perhaps the next several days.

Ron fell asleep that night in a dormitory he found foreign and welcoming at the same time, to the sound of Percy and George breathing from either side of him. 

When he woke up in the middle of the night, at first he didn’t realize the reason why; he’d never been a light sleeper. Then he heard the muffled sobs coming from beside him. He let the sound lull him back to sleep, with his heart heavy and tears in his eyes again.

* * *

Severus told himself he could not afford to mess the potion up a second time.

He took extra care to make sure the ingredients were all prepared in the right quantities, double and triple checked everything, despite the fact that he’d gone through these same steps so many times before that he knew it was unnecessary work. It wasn’t for no reason, though; it kept his mind off things. He’d never been one to do things without a good reason.

But the familiarity of the process kept weakening his determination to fixate on it, and other thoughts started to slowly but steadily seep in.

Alone for the first time after the end of the battle, his mind had never felt so crowded with faces. Some whipped past, barely recognized; others lurked in the background, clinging like regret. And still others burst into form and shattered in his mind’s eye, sending what felt like shards of crystallized fire through his chest.

 _Would Rodolphus Lestrange be in Azkaban by now, awaiting his trial?_ Severus was unfamiliar with the trial process, and he’d never even set foot in Azkaban; Dumbledore had seen to that. 

But he had met the Dementors, back in that wretched year when he’d kept looking over his shoulder, constantly on edge. Maybe it would have been better if they had Kissed Sirius Black after all. _At least then, it would be clear that it was my fault. I wouldn’t be left wondering like this._

He still remembered the blame in Harry’s eyes that day in the courtyard, the day he and Draco had clashed over the imprisonment of Lucius Malfoy. The day Minerva McGonagall had returned from St. Mungo’s hospital. They’d had a drink in the staffroom afterwards, and he’d been subjected to a berating that had only been half-serious, on the subject of House points.

And in the early hours of this day, he had been to Death’s door, laid a trembling and resigned foot on the threshold. _And to think I believed I would be able to face everything at last._ He’d fled back to the living.

He’d expected everything to feel small, afterwards. Trivial, inane. But now faces loomed over him like a childhood nightmare he’d just recalled, and he felt as clueless and helpless as he had been when he was sixteen. When his best friend he’d ever had in his life had declared him a lost cause. It was funny, in a way; he’d thought at the time that that was what made him finally believe it to be true, when what he had actually been doing was waiting for confirmation. Her words had been nothing much more than a stamp of approval on the document he himself had written.

That was where it had all started. Perhaps he’d thought that he could fade into the background, once everyone reached an agreement that there was simply no use for him. 

Later, and too late, as he knew, he’d realized that in believing oneself to be worthless, there was a very good chance that one would become destructive.

And then he had taught. Teaching had kept him from being destructive, which was good, and sometimes he had been allowed to feel like he was useful. In staff meetings, he would be asked about his House and be expected to have an answer ready. It had been good to have things expected of him. Or so he’d thought.

He still didn’t know how to feel about everything that had happened during the past year. Perhaps it was inconceivable and ridiculous that he had been so scathing to Minerva McGonagall, when he had all but forgiven Albus Dumbledore. 

_She had never cared for me. She regarded the fifteen previous years she’d known me as nothing more than a mask I’d worn._

It was idiotic when he thought about it, since part of why he had not condemned Albus Dumbledore back in the Headmaster’s office was because Dumbledore had always been able to see right through him. And even more so as, like he had said himself, her believing that the previous fifteen years had been a farce had been crucial for the plan. If anything, he should be hating the person who had constructed that plan in the first place. 

Instead he had forgiven a portrait, and stood stewing in the dungeons after having reduced a remorseful woman to tears.

 _Nice going,_ he thought, tossing mugwort leaves into the cauldron. _Now you have another difficult thing to talk to Remus about._

He wondered if the man would disapprove. He recalled his cold fury at Dumbledore, and realized that Remus might feel the other way around about things. That he’d find manipulation much less forgivable than uninformed hatred. _Did she hate me?_ Another stab through the chest. _Does she?_

At least it was clear that, before anything else, he would have to speak with Remus. Once he decided that, it made his mind feel less cluttered. He knew Remus would ask him about the past year, about Dumbledore and George Weasley and Rodolphus Lestrange. 

And this time, he would answer. He had no other choice, not when Remus had been so open.

“I love you,” Remus had said, and Severus had not said it back. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever said those words before in his life. Maybe he would tell Remus that, and everything would become less of a confusing jumble. Because he thought he could see more clearly than ever now. If Lily had co-signed his inner declaration, Remus had seen it hanging proudly on the wall like a plaque, taken it down, and torn it up.

That didn’t mean the thoughts had gone entirely, of course. But it helped. Remus had understood him better than he himself had, it seemed. 

So they would talk, and maybe Severus would manage not to hide this time. He owed him that much, if anything. The last time he’d left the man, it had been in the early hours of morning, with no explanation or farewell, and he still couldn’t believe Remus hadn’t brought that up yet. Maybe it would be he who would bring it up first, and talk about how seeing his lover’s face relaxed in sleep had almost made him rethink everything, consider abandoning the path he had been on. And perhaps he would even tell him that a part of him still wished he had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I'll be back with another chapter next week :)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape (+ Hermione Granger)
> 
> On things we didn't take time to ponder before.

Dawn was approaching again, and some of those who couldn’t sleep snuck quietly out of the dormitories. They huddled together, to count down the time until it would be a full twenty-four hours since the war had ended. Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom quietly motioned Ginny Weasley over, and the three of them sat in silence in mustard yellow cushions, their shadows dancing in the firelight. Never had things been more peaceful and relaxed in the past year, but the air was tense with all the words they did not say to one another.

Down in the dungeons, Severus Snape had his back to his office door when it opened, and he froze where he stood at the sound.

“I’m back,” a voice called from the corridor. Then, familiar slow, shuffling footsteps.

The words were met with a deep sigh, and Severus heard quiet laughter from behind him as Remus approached.

“It took you long enough,” he said, not looking around.

“There were lots of things to do.” Remus spoke into his hair, and then leaned to the side to peer at the workbench and into the cauldron. Severus barely suppressed a small shudder as a tingle ran through him, from the point where Remus’s chin touched his shoulder. He found the long arms encircling his waist with his free hand instead, and held on as he continued to stir the potion.

“I shouldn’t distract you,” said Remus. “Tell me if I’m disturbing your working, alright?”

By way of answer, Severus gripped Remus’s arm still tighter. A soft laugh next to his ear, and another buzz went through his spine.

“Alright,” Remus chuckled. Then, “You know I’ll have to let go of you eventually.”

Then he held on for another three minutes, until Severus let go of his arm to prepare more wolfsbane. Remus pulled over a chair from the far side of the room and sat himself down, massaging his legs.

“Should I, erm, try to help?” he said, after a moment.

Severus barely resisted the urge to snort loudly. “It’s fine.”

“Don’t you laugh,” Remus said, laughing himself. “It’s not my fault I’m horrible at potion-making.”

After a moment, Severus pushed a cutting board of herbs towards Remus. “You could bias slice these, if you want.”

“Alright.” A pause. “Can... Can I do it with my wand?”

“Just give them here,” said Severus exasperatedly, and reached for the board again.

“You could just tell me,” Remus laughed, half indignant but with mirth in his eyes, and it felt like finding footing. “You’re so precise, and I thought I might waste ingredients.”

“You don’t have to help with the potion,” said Severus, and he realized there was a smile lingering on his face. “It’s not that much hard work. Just…” He cut himself off, suddenly embarrassed.

Remus stood with a grunt. And then there was a hand brushing through his hair. “Don’t worry,” Remus said. “I’ll stay here.”

“I’ve lost count how many times you left me out to dry just this past day,” Severus grumbled. The apologetic laughter against the side of his neck was too good to be true, and he wanted to lose himself in it, never find his way out.

“I’m sorry,” Remus chuckled. “From now on, I promise won’t leave your side.”

“Mm.”

“I won’t.”

Remus’s hand was on his chest, where Severus knew he could feel his heart beating. He felt open and vulnerable, and it wasn’t terrifying.

“Okay,” he said.

Remus kissed his cheek, before looking around at the fumes rising from the now bubbling cauldron. “Are you sure it’s supposed to do that?”

“Oh for God’s sake —” Severus attempted to push the man away, if only half-heartedly.

“I was _joking_.” Remus was laughing again, and this time Severus joined in.

After that, Remus settled himself in the chair again and watched Severus working. Severus had expected the air between them to be weighed down with the things they needed to talk to each other about once Remus returned, but the mood was lighter than he could have dared hope for. He supposed Remus was holding back from discussing the heavier topics until he had finished working on the potion. Which was good, he supposed — one ruined cauldron was enough.

Remus told him instead of the rebuilding of Hogsmeade he had participated in, and the fires that Fawkes had started up.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, in the middle of retelling the latter happening. “Did you send Fawkes out to do that?”

“No.” Severus squinted at the cauldron for a moment as he answered, stirring slowly. “I haven’t seen him since we were in the Headmaster’s office.”

“Oh, alright,” said Remus. “I just wondered.”

A few more minutes later, Remus got up from his seat again.

“Bathroom,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

“You’re a liar.”

The man laughed, planting another kiss on Severus’s cheek. His fringe tickled Severus’s face.

“I’ll be _right back,”_ he repeated.

After the door to his old quarters closed behind Remus, Severus pondered to himself for a moment about the matter of Fawkes. 

He hadn’t really stopped to think about what his relationship with the bird might look like. That bird who had always seemed to know his last owner’s wants before he had voiced them. He wondered if the same would be true when it came to him.

He remembered that the bird had been in the Headmaster’s office, that night Dumbledore had told him the half-truth that had left his mind in shambles for a year.

_“How many men and women have you watched die?”_

_“Lately, only those whom I could not save.”_

And he wondered if Fawkes remembered that conversation as well. If that was why he was going around starting fires and saving lives. Or if the bird could see even deeper, if his mind itself was open to the creature — like the time he had been shut out of the house for a weekend, or when he had sat under a tree nursing aches after a Death Eater meeting, too pained to move.

He didn’t know how he felt about that idea. Perhaps he would ask Dumbledore’s portrait about it, though it was most likely that it would give him a vague answer he would never be able to make neither heads nor tails of anyway.

“You should go to bed,” he said, when he heard the door to his rooms opening again. “It’s late.”

“And leave you here working? I don’t think so.” Remus moved over to his seat again.

“You’re exhausted.”

“I’m always exhausted,” said Remus. “And apart from that, you accused me of being a liar, and I intend to prove otherwise.”

He crossed his arms across his chest, and settled in his chair in a mock stubborn fashion. About ten minutes later, Severus caught him dozing, and shook him awake.

_“Bed.”_

Remus did not argue this time.

“Here,” he said, gesturing for Severus as he stood. They kissed, and Remus tugged strands of Severus’s hair behind his ear. His smile was warm. 

“I’ll see you in the morning,” said Remus. Severus nodded before leaning in again. Remus chuckled as their foreheads touched, and Severus recalled the feel of the boyishly cut fringe pressed lightly against his face. Five seconds. Twenty. A hundred years.

* * *

_It’s almost like a class reunion,_ Hermione thought.

The people that had been sitting together in the warm Hufflepuff common room had slowly started to file out after a while. Since the news reached them that the bodies of the dead had been moved out of the Great Hall, almost everyone who had been huddled in the couches and cushions had gone. It was understandable; the sheer friendliness of the large room, sunny even in darkness, was suffocating.

And they were still there. ‘They’ being herself, Harry, Ron, and around a dozen others. They sat in a wide ring, some dozing off, others talking — all, Hermione noticed, members of the D.A. The thought made something bubble up inside her, though she wasn’t sure whether it was happiness or grief. She’d never liked being unsure of things.

Some, like Michael Corner and Anthony Goldstein, had come from the hospital wing, where she’d heard extra beds had been squeezed in to accommodate those staying for just one night. The two of them were leaning against each other, saying nothing as far as she could tell. She wondered if they were thinking of Terry Boot; those three had always been thick as thieves. She’d heard them being referred to once or twice as the ‘Harry Potter trio of Ravenclaw’. In a horrible flash, she remembered Terry’s unrecognizable face, and stifled an involuntary gasp.

To her left, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were talking in low voices.

“Has Aberforth cooled down yet?”

“Yeah,” she heard Dean mutter. “We should ask him if he wants help rebuild the Hog’s Head later today.”

“His face when he heard its ceiling caved in…”

“You didn’t make things any better.”

“It was a _joke_.”

Dean laughed, and no one turned to look at him. Hermione had heard him laughing a few times when they had been at Shell Cottage together, and knew that it was how he got through things. She was glad no one gave him grief over that, all of them finding comfort and company here, choosing stifling warmth over anywhere else in the castle.

She knew why they were all here, of course. Because no one else was. And at least the D.A. members were bearable. Even herself, apparently.

Luna had a plump cushion on her lap, and was talking about the Three-Legged Bird from before. She’d talked all evening about it, but the stories and ridiculous facts never seemed to run out. Neville was nodding along, but Hermione could tell Ron was listening intently, even throwing in a few questions. Harry had apparently noticed as well; he was looking over at Ron with an expression that made Hermione’s throat constrict.

“Hermione,” Harry muttered eventually, over the constant flow of Luna’s words that were almost music.

She straightened up, and turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“Are you going to stay here?”

“I — what?” Her heart plummeted.

“I mean...” Harry looked as if he wasn’t sure if he could bring it up, whatever it was. He apparently hadn’t noticed her emotional shift; her stomach was roiling.

Eventually he said, “Your parents. You know. Shouldn’t you go and… get them? Revive their memories?”

“Oh,” she said. Her heartbeat was returning to normal. So it wasn’t what she’d thought it was. _Idiot._ “Well, yeah, I suppose I should.”

Harry blinked, looking as if that wasn’t the reaction he’d expected at all. She sighed.

“It’s just that… There’s so much left to do.”

“ _Hermione._ ” Harry sounded exasperated and shocked.

“Well, there is!”

“Hermione,” Harry repeated, a crease between his eyebrows. “You shouldn’t worry about _that_. There’s loads of us that can take care of it.”

She said nothing. And after a beat, Harry seemed to understand.

“You’ve done more than enough already,” he said, more quietly. 

Hermione felt her eyes brimming over with tears, and a second later, Harry was hugging her.

“You don’t have to be responsible for everything, ‘Mione,” he said.

 _You don’t understand,_ she thought. But then, Harry was probably the only person she knew who _could_ understand. She cried, just a bit, into her old friend’s shoulder, as she realized her heart felt heavier than she ever remembered it feeling.

“Are you… afraid, about your parents?” Harry said in a low voice, after a while. “About whether they’ll be okay?”

She shrugged as she dislodged herself from him. “I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose there is that as well? I did the best job I could, though. And I know they’re fine; I put trackers on them.”

Harry blinked, then his face cracked into a familiar smile. The same smile he’d wear every time Hermione had revealed some sneaky back-up plan or other. “Of course you did,” he said, almost to himself. He didn’t ask her why she hadn’t told him. She was grateful.

“You should go,” he said again, after another pause. “As soon as you can. Maybe it’d be best not to bring them back into the country just yet, but you should get their memories back.”

She stayed silent for a moment. In front of her was her best friend who she had seen grieving, sobbing over his parents’ graves just a few months before, and who, she knew, would probably never be able to confidently call anyone family. What else could she say, knowing that?

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll leave now, and come back as soon as I —”

“ _Stay_ as long as you want. Merlin, Hermione.”

She sighed. “Okay. I’ll go.”

“Where’re you going?” Dean Thomas piped up from her other side. Several heads turned.

“Oh,” she said. “To fetch my parents.”

“You sent them into hiding as well?” said Dean.

“Well… Yes.”

“I did that too.” Dean sighed, and scratched the back of his head contemplatively. “I sent them an owl telling them it was over, but I think it’ll be safer to get them out of hiding myself as well.”

“Oh. Yes,” she said again.

“Do you have anyone going with you?” Seamus said, from next to Dean. “He’s heading off with me, daybreak. And we’re going to ask an Auror to come with us.”

“You should do that too, ‘Mione,” said Harry. “It could be dangerous.”

 _Especially since it’s Australia._ She saw it in his expression, but he didn’t voice it aloud. Relieved and thankful, she nodded.

She met Ron’s eyes, and there was inquiry in his face, surfacing from under all the things that hurt her to see. She shook her head mutely. _I can’t take Ron with me. And I can’t take Harry either._

“Would you like me to accompany you, Hermione?”

Hermione blinked, and looked at Luna, sitting next to Ron.

“I…” she said. And in that moment, she knew that if there was anyone who wouldn’t judge her for the choices she made, it was Luna Lovegood.

“Alright,” she said. “Do you want to come?”

“Oh, yes,” said Luna loftily. “I’d love to help.” She rose from her seat.

“I think I heard you wanted to leave right away?” she said.

Hermione briefly wondered how she had heard that, when she had been talking herself the whole time.

“Yes.” She put aside the cushion she had pulled towards her. “Just a moment.”

She turned to Harry, and he opened his arms again. He felt familiar, like home. She heard footsteps approaching, and knew that Ron had joined them. She turned to the young man who suddenly felt far, and hugged him tight.

“I’ll be back soon,” she said quietly into his hair. “Take care.”

He nodded mutely, and their faces brushed against each other as they let go.

She looked around for Luna, and spotted her near the entrance. She waved at everyone and smiled at their “Good luck”’s before making her way across the common room.

“Let’s go,” she said.

As they made their way down the corridor, heading towards the Great Hall, Luna spoke.

“I was thinking,” she said. “Would you be willing to help me find my father, after we’re able to bring your parents back? I’m sure he’ll turn up in due time, of course, but I am a bit worried by now.”

Hermione looked at her. She wondered if Luna knew anything regarding what had happened between her father and Harry, Ron, and her. And then, if that even mattered.

_“They took my Luna.”_

He had been trying to get his daughter back. Hermione had never really understood anyone going to those lengths, but perhaps she would someday. And another thing she hadn’t understood had been Luna herself. She wondered if the girl walking next to her, now humming softly to herself as if she’d forgotten she was supposed to be waiting for an answer, realized that she had kept many people afloat tonight.

Hermione had always dismissed Luna as being the least grounded person she could think of. She had been disdainful of her loftiness and dreaminess, and her throwing around fiction as if it were fact, and had sometimes even wanted to tell her to snap out of it. She could acknowledge that now. She was shameful.

 _I want to be like you,_ she thought.

“Of course,” she said. “I’d be more than happy to help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're checking back in with Hermione after a long while, and I hope you enjoyed seeing her again! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated, and thank you for reading :D


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+ Nymphadora Tonks)
> 
> When the thing you remember is right there in front of you - and when it's not.

Clouds parted like curtains in the early morning sky. Sudden sunlight broke through the windows, almost dizzyingly bright, and Dora’s eyes flew open. She reached up her sleeve for her wand as she bolted upright. 

A few seconds later, she realized that she wasn’t at the resistance’s dingy headquarters in London. And her sleeve felt lighter than she was used to.

She stood there for a moment, disoriented. Then she fell back onto the bed. She turned her head towards the bedside table and spotted her wand, and saw a few strands of her hair out of the corner of her eye, blond and glinting in the early morning sun.

She knew she didn’t have to have her wand in her hand anymore. She reached for it anyway, and placed it inside her back — no, front pocket, she thought. She supposed it was at least more lax than keeping it in her sleeve. And in any case, she didn’t want to lose a buttock. She lay there and thought of that, and the laughter did not come.

She was restless. All year she had spent running around, constantly on edge, and now she couldn’t shake off the feeling of being unmoored. Like a backpack you had always crammed too many books into, until one day you decided to carry it empty. What was the thing she next needed to do? Her mind strained for it, but nothing came to her.

So she got up after another minute, opened the door to her room, and made her way downstairs. The living room was empty and the house was silent. She walked into the kitchen and saw the dishes from yesterday’s dinner still on the table. She might as well clear it up and make breakfast, she thought, and she pulled her wand out.

On her tiptoes, many times, she had seen her mother do the dishes, and had been transfixed by how fast the plates whisked past her mother’s cleaning spells and flew up to the racks in a graceful row, clean as new. That had never been her strong suit. She levitated the dishes over and stood there for a moment, before levitating one of them over and casting a mute _Scourgify_. About half of the leftovers vanished. She tried it again, saying the spell aloud this time. It wasn’t much better.

Had it been another time, she might have laughed in exasperation and did it the Muggle way — her father had done that, and he had said he found that way more comfortable. Now she stared down at the small stack of dishes and her pathetic efforts, with her wand hand trembling as her nails bit into the wood. After a moment, she threw her wand across the kitchen, and her elbow cracked.

The water was ice cold. She gritted her teeth and grabbed the sponge and scrubbed the plate she’d failed to clean, _how dare it, how fucking dare it._ After a while, she became vaguely aware that she had scrubbed so much that some of the paint had peeled off — whether it was brute force or magic she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. 

What she did know was that this plate had been in the house since as far back as she could remember, and that it was her father’s favourite, and her hand holding it trembled as she looked down at the patterns. They were flaking off and the water was washing them down, leaving a patchy and frayed mess behind.

Then the plate shattered in her hand.

She let out a strangled scream and made a grab for another dish in the stack. Her hands were red and numb under the water as she kept at it, disregarding the broken pieces. Miraculously, she managed not to damage the next two.

A few furious scrubs into a bowl, she realized that someone was standing beside her and jumped around, hand flying to her sleeve.

Her mother stood there, looking from her face to her red and stiff-looking fingers to the remnants of the dish inside the sink. Dora wanted to run and hide.

After a few seconds, her mother reached an arm over towards the sink as if to step in. She pulled sharply back when Dora slapped her arm away with a frustrated cry, and the look on her face made her tightly shut jaw tremble. Tears had been running down her face for a while now, she realized, and she wiped them away with her sleeve, glaring at the ground. She felt like she was five again, and she’d just been caught trying to salvage a surprise birthday present gone awry.

Except back then, her father had been there too. And it had been he who had taken her up to her room, and he had hugged her.

“I’ll take over.” Her mother’s voice held veiled concern, and Dora clenched her hands into fists. She said nothing back.

“Don’t be stubborn, move aside. Sit and rest for a bit.”

Dora moved aside. She sat down in the closest chair and watched as her mother set to work, getting the rest of the work done so fast it was humiliating.

“I’ll make you some breakfast,” she heard, and she glanced up.

“I’m not hungry.”

A pause. “You need to eat.”

“I need to head back to the Ministry.”

There was a long silence. An even longer silence than there had been the previous day, when Dora had stood on the threshold and said, by way of greeting, that the war was over.

Then her mother nodded. “Alright,” she said. And Dora halted for a moment, blinking, before she nodded herself. She moved past her and out of the kitchen without another word.

She might as well actually go to the Ministry now, she thought. She was sure there was something for her to do there. And she had already relayed enough information about the final battle. Casualties, injuries, damages. And Harry Potter’s non-death, and Severus Snape’s true allegiance, and the final blow that ended the war — for good, this time.

The only thing she had left out was Bellatrix’s death. Her mother did not ask for it, either. She hadn’t even said anything for the most part, but had just sat and listened. The only time she had seemed affected by anything was when Dora had talked about Snape. She still hadn’t said a word, but she had blinked, and her eyes had widened a little, holding an emotion inside them that Dora could not figure out.

If it had been another time, she might have been curious about it.

Weren’t mothers supposed to comfort their daughters? When your child had just been in a war, was it a normal thing to passively listen to their account of it without comment, before making her dinner and sending her up to bed? Weren’t you supposed to cry with her, instead of telling her you’ll wash the dishes now? Or was it the other way around? 

Her mother had never been the type to sit with her on bad nights, she knew. Her father had always been more comfortable with those things.

She knew her mother was the only other person who was feeling like she felt. Other deaths had faded. This clung to her and festered, and she thought that from time to time, her mother must clutch the chest over her heart in agony too. 

They had never really clicked together, not the way both of them had with her father. A man had died and a bridge had been burned, and now it seemed that neither of them knew what to say to each other. It was frustrating, and Dora balled her hands into fists again — because she knew if they did not figure it out, they would stay this way. And she ached but the words didn’t come, they had never come as smoothly with her mother.

And she had no idea what she needed to do next.

* * *

The same sunlight that had burst into being in the little village crept shyly upwards back at Hogwarts castle. Those who had congregated in the Great Hall sat in groups, and counted down the minutes, then seconds.

When the light streamed in through the high windows, and the twenty-four hours had undoubtedly been up, everyone in the hall seemed to suck in a breath. But no one cheered. And a sort of relaxed grief fell over them once again.

Outside on the grounds, Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan were walking to the gates, accompanied by a young Auror. As they neared the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest, the Auror, who never missed a thing, spotted a woman in torn robes. Her hair was coming out of her tight-looking bun, and she was walking slowly along the edges of the trees with feigned purpose in her strides. 

And they remembered the expression on her face shortly after she had handed over a mangled corpse to them, and wondered if she had suffered a shock. They faced forwards once more, squinting against the sunlight.

Of course, natural light never reached the dungeons, so when Remus Lupin blinked his eyes open, he saw a room lit in flickering lamps. His hands and feet felt cold. He pulled the blanket, which he’d nearly kicked off the bed in his sleep, back over himself and lay still in bed for a moment. His limbs felt heavy but he was wide awake, and he tried to listen for any sounds coming from the other side of the door.

After a few seconds, he heard the clunk of something being laid down, and the unmistakable fizz of cauldron mixture. He peeled off his sheets and shifted out of bed, his knees cracking as he stood.

The man standing in front of the brewing table, shielding part of the cauldron from view, turned around at the sound of the door opening behind him.

He stopped moving for a second, as did Remus, and they stared at each other for a moment. He knew Severus must be drinking it all in, too. They had been something much worse than strangers to each other, less than two days before.

“You still look exhausted,” said Severus. Remus laughed.

“Good morning,” he said. His voice was a bit groggy, and he coughed to clear it. “Aren’t you tired? You’ve been up, ah — how many hours? Nearly two full days, at the least.”

Severus frowned. “Very nearly,” he said, as if it had only just occurred to him. 

“When will that potion be done?” Remus gestured at the cauldron, closing the door behind him as he moved out of the private quarters. Across the room, he saw Fawkes, resting on a swing hanging from the ceiling that definitely hadn’t been there the night before. His beady eyes followed him as he walked.

“Only around three hours left now.”

Remus approached the table and reached for Severus’s free hand, fitting his own fingers in the space between his.

“Dahlbite powder,” murmured Severus. Then, after a small pause, “The white one.”

“I know what dahlbite powder is,” said Remus indignantly, chuckling as he handed the little bottle over. He watched as Severus shook some in, not bothering to so much as check the amount with a spoon. _If it had been literally anyone else I saw making the potion like this, I would most probably refuse to drink it,_ he thought. _Not even if it was Damocles Belby himself._

“What?” said Severus, at Remus’s small hum of amusement.

“Nothing.”

“Hm.” Severus turned his head slightly as he paused his stirring, and his nose touched Remus’s hairline.

“Oh,” he said after a moment, “the summons for a trial arrived.”

Remus broke apart from him. “In the middle of the night?”

“It came by owl.”

Severus pointed, and Remus saw an official-looking envelope lying on one of the shelves lining the walls. Its seal had been cracked open and the letter itself looked to be lying underneath it. He reached for them.

“A week from now,” Severus said as Remus read it through.

“This sounds like…” Remus trailed off, hoping Severus would finish it with the way he wished the sentence to end. And sure enough —

“It’s just procedure.” Severus nodded. Remus let out a breath, and Severus chuckled under his breath. “Were you worried?”

“You’re really asking that.” 

Remus laid down the envelope and letter back where he’d grabbed them from, before moving back towards Severus and wrapping an arm around his waist. He rested his chin on Severus’s shoulder, and spotted a raised eyebrow.

“Of course I was worried,” he said.

Severus was silent for a moment, and Remus saw amusement in the way he moved his hands. “There still is the slim chance I’ll be thrown in prison for ten years.”

“What are you trying to say?”

A hand on Remus’s arm, and a second before the words came. “Still a chance you could… grab your pen and make a run for it?”

They looked at each other. And utterly impossibly, the shared inside joke seemed to burst their time open, growing expansive and endless. The smallness of it, and the enormity, hit Remus in his chest and suddenly he was someone who had never held sorrow. His eyes watered and he laughed, and saw Severus looking confused and slightly worried. Leaned in for a kiss.

“Did you have breakfast?” he said, when he pulled away.

Severus looked down at the simmering potion for a second before answering. “No,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

“Well, yes, but more than that, you must be starving.”

“I only have to stay for a few more hours.”

“I’ll go find breakfast for both of us,” said Remus. “Alright?”

Usually, they could summon a House Elf and they wouldn’t have to move. But these were not usual circumstances. Remus had heard that nearly half the House Elves who had joined the final battle had been badly injured, a lot of them having been trampled in the crowd.

Severus gazed down at Remus’s hand drawing circles on his shoulder for a moment.

“Alright,” he said.

So they exchanged another kiss, before Remus left the Potion Master’s office once more. He made his way up to the kitchens, and the castle was less quiet than it had been last night. Most of the portraits were back inside their frames, and they were talking amongst themselves. 

An old man in smart-looking robes and a hat slightly too large for him called, “Professor, good to see you again,” as he passed, and Remus turned to incline his head, a smile lingering on his face. Because he remembered.

When he tickled the pear and the door to the kitchens opened, however, he was met with a sight he had never seen before. There were fewer House Elves in the large space than before, as he had expected, but what he hadn’t expected were the witches and wizards.

They were walking along the pots and pans, chopping up ingredients, handing steaming cauldrons over to the Elves. Remus recognized some faces as his old students, others as Hogsmeade residents.

The several House Elves who didn’t have anything on them at the moment bustled over to greet him as he entered. And someone else had seen him coming in as well.

“Good seeing you here, Professor Lupin,” said Pomona Sprout. Her fingers and robes, for once, were free of dirt.

“Same to you, Professor Sprout. And please, call me Remus.”

“You’ve come for some food, is that right?”

“Yes,” he said. “But I should lend a hand before I leave.”

“Oh, nonsense, Remus.” As soon as she said it, two House Elves ran over carrying a large basket with toast, sandwiches, and a bottle of pumpkin juice in it.

“No, really,” Remus waved down the Elves, who were holding the basket up expectantly. “I should help.”

“There are plenty of hands already, and we’re nearly done. Never mind that, just,” Professor Sprout lowered a voice and waved him closer. When he had leaned his head in, she spoke again.

“You’re bringing this down to eat with Severus, right?”

“Oh,” Remus blinked, then smiled a little. “Yes, er. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that…” Sprout paused for a bit. “Well, it’s not anything that big. But, perhaps, could you tell him to — think about talking things over with Minerva again? She’s… Well, she’s terribly broken over it all. Though don’t tell her I said that.” She raised a finger in the air.

“Oh,” said Remus again. “No, no, I won’t." He paused for another moment before saying, "Alright, Professor Sprout. I’ll pass on the message.”

He took the basket from the House Elves, and glanced around the large room once more, still hesitant. Sprout made a shooing motion and bustled him over back to the door to the kitchens.

"Have a good morning," she said.

"Yes, thank you, Professor. And you as well." They were at the entrance, and Remus inclined his head, smiling.

“And could you not tell him that I suggested it, Remus?” she added, in front of the door. Remus turned from where he had opened it. “I’ve… wronged him as well, and I don’t think he’ll take kindly to my words at the moment.”

“Ah," said Remus, and for a brief moment he wondered exactly how the rest of the Hogwarts staff had treated Severus. Severus had forgiven Dumbledore but not Minerva McGonagall; maybe she, and Hagrid and Flitwick and Sprout, had actually hurt him worse. He wondered whether he should have been as polite as he had. "Alright.”

Then Remus was outside again, holding the heavy basket, and carrying — who would have thought — yet another uncomfortable topic of conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update; I hit a block because of stuff going on irl, but here it is now :D  
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, and thank you for reading!


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Neville Longbottom, Harry Potter
> 
> Familiarity is to feel, not to recognize; if you do the latter, it might not be any more.

St. Mungo’s was busy, but quiet. The usual bustle and chaos in the ground floor was replaced by a silent, almost tangible strain of mutual focus and determination. 

Healers walked briskly across the hall, most of them taking the lifts that descended through the ceiling above to bring them up to their respective floors. Trainees, in uniforms of various colours, popped in and out in a similar fashion, some of them looking a little lost as they roamed the floor, clipboards hovering in front of them.

There were also many more volunteers than usual. A short, stout healer with white strands in her auburn hair had just led a group of them through.

“No one hurt on the way here, I hope,” she said, turning to address the small crowd of people behind her.

In the middle of the line, Neville Longbottom shook his head along with the rest of the volunteers. Next to him, Ernie Macmillan was looking around at the reception area curiously. He clearly hadn’t been to the hospital very often.

“Right,” said the healer. “Far right row, follow me, please.”

“Bye,” Neville said to Ernie, as he made his way forwards.

“See you.”

The hospital was empty and full at the same time. Neville helped move beds and carry stretchers, and he saw beds duplicated more times than he could count, but the halls were quieter than he remembered them ever being.

After a while, when most of the busier work had been taken care of, he made his way up to the stout witch, who he knew was named Fent.

She saw him coming and smiled at him, and he wished she wouldn’t. He gave a small smile back.

“Go on,” she said. So he didn’t even need to ask. 

He made his way across the familiar halls and up the wide staircases until he reached the ward. 

He pulled the door open. The room was quiet. He made his way across the room, pushed aside the curtain that concealed the beds, and stepped inside.

He’d been here more times than he could attempt to count. He knew every scratch on the tiled floor, all the boxes on the shelf and the papers taped to the wall. And he knew the woman on the bed, her eyes closed but face strained even in sleep, her hair white and wispy. He felt a sinking in his stomach he didn’t know what to make of.

“Mum.”

He said it in a whisper. Because maybe a part of her, the part that shuffled out of bed to hand him empty wrappers, would be able to hear.

“Where’s dad, mum?”

She was still sleeping soundly. Neville wondered if he should go looking for the occupant of the empty bed beside her. But his father never left his wife’s side for long, and he had never been able to find anyone in this maze of a hospital anyway. So he sat there for a while, looking around.

Some of the boxes had been rearranged. Neville reached for one of them, a sunflower yellow one whose edges were chipped and paint was peeling. Opening it, he saw the usual small mound of paper slips, coloured yellow, red, green, orange, blue. Labels. She might have acquired a few more while he had been gone, or maybe that was just his imagination. He shut the box quietly and returned it to where he had taken it down from. Took a second one off the shelf.

“I thought you didn’t keep name plates with wrappers,” he said, almost to himself. “Maybe you ran out of space.” He rummaged through the contents. “I’ll get you a new box, if you need one.”

She made a mumbling noise in her sleep, and he stalled in his movements for a moment. Her eyes did not open, and he shut the box quietly, put it back.

He went as far as the fourth container, a larger box. As he pulled the thing that he had been looking for out of it, he heard the sound of dragging feet approaching the corner he was in. He raised his head in time to see the curtain part, and a man walk into view.

They looked at each other, and something seemed to flicker at the very back of the older man’s eyes, as it always had done. Neville had never known whether he imagined it or not.

“Hey, dad,” he whispered. “I’m here to visit for a bit.”

His father kept standing there. Neville noticed him glancing to an empty chair against the wall.

“Oh,” he said, “Gran’s not here today. She’s in the hospital wing, at Hogwarts. She’ll be fine, though, don’t worry.”

The man made a small noise Neville might have imagined, and bent down to tug at the covers on his bed. Neville stood to help.

Once his father had settled back down, Neville lowered himself into the hard-backed chair again.

“I wanted to wait until you came,” he said. His father was looking at him. And suddenly, he felt as though the moment he said the next words on his tongue, everything might just be undone.

“The war’s over. We won.”

And in a flash he saw his parents’ faces, barely past twenty, smiling and waving at him out of a picture. He saw them, while staring ahead at the two wizened hospital patients lying side by side in their beds, knowing that that same image, burned into his retinas, would be there when he lowered his head to look at the photo album he had open on his lap. And next to them he saw a himself that was old enough to know, to understand, who could have shared with them something more than mere presence. He was that person now. And everything, everything was so  _ unfair _ .

_ I saw Bellatrix Lestrange yesterday. I saw her die. Molly Weasley killed her. _

“The final battle was at Hogwarts. I came here to volunteer, because the hospital needs it right now, you can probably imagine.”

_ Molly Weasley, you know her. Molly... Prewett. Ron’s mum. You know Ron, I’ve told you about him, Ron from school. _

His mother had woken up. She was stirring, her eyes bleary at first, then finding some semblance of focus as she turned her head towards him. She looked like she was glad to see him, but Neville knew it was probably just in his head.

“Harry defeated Voldemort. Harry Potter. And I fought in the battle, and so did Gran, and the Hogwarts professors.”

_ Some people died. Lavender Brown, she used to sit next to me in Charms and would let me borrow her quill, she always carried around a spare. And Terry Boot. I don’t know much about him. He had a funny laugh. _

_ They’re gone, mum. They’re gone and they’re not coming back. _

But he had always thought his parents would.

His grandmother had compared him to his father for as long as he could remember. When he was younger, he had always been confusedly resentful. Now he knew that all this time, he had been doing exactly the same thing as she had been. 

Banking on a day to come.

Sometimes, on particularly heavy nights, he had almost wished he didn’t have the source of hope at all. That his parents had just — And then he had cursed himself. Because they were there, weren’t they, and he could look into their eyes and call them mum and dad. And if he waited enough and the years passed, one day, one day they just might call back to him.

Everything he had fought for and against, he had thought it had been because of a newfound bravery he had acquired. But that wasn’t true; he had known all along, he just hadn’t been honest with himself. 

The truth was that he had been able to fight through everything that had happened to him, because he had been waiting for that one day to come. It was exciting, the act of waiting. Of anticipating. Of knowing for sure, of being so certain.

So what had he fought for, when it came down to it?

_ Myself. Myself and an idiotic wish I knew deep down would never come true. _

Maybe, he remembered telling himself, it would happen on his eleventh birthday. Maybe it would when it had been ten years since the incident. Maybe on Christmas day. Maybe when his O.W.L. results came. Maybe on his seventeenth birthday; when he would have become his own person, if only he weren’t so tied to them still.

And what he now realized had been his last thread of hope, the thing that had kept his head up all this time. The last deadline. When the war had ended. When the purpose they had given their sanity to had been fulfilled.

So what now?

_ Nothing. _

The word hit him like a punch in the gut. And he knew. He knew that he had been nothing all along. Nothing much more than a flimsy little box, filled with colourful labels and equally meaningless assurances.

Because he could never be his father.

He felt something on his arm, and raised his head. His vision was blurred. He blinked several times. His mother had sat up in bed, and laid a bony hand on his shoulder.

“Lie back down, mum,” he whispered, even though there was no need to, now that she had woken. After all, if he did that, maybe a part of her could hear him. 

* * *

“Lupin came to the kitchens earlier, apparently, to fetch food for Snape and himself.”

“So they really are together,” mused Angelina Johnson, frowning slightly as she passed the water to Katie Bell, who was sitting across from her.

Inside the Great Hall once again, Harry had somehow found himself seated amongst most of the original Gryffindor Quidditch team; only the Weasley twins were missing from the bunch. He was relieved he had found them. With Ron and Hermione gone from his side, he had been completely lost as to where he could seek company.

“You know, I can see it.”

_ “Kate.” _

To Harry’s left, Alicia Spinnet suppressed a giggle.

He had grown since third year, when these five people had last played together. Wood had looked so much bigger when he had been thirteen than he did now. Perhaps that might have felt jarring, but it didn’t. Harry was back amongst the first ever group he had felt a part of.

It was a shame he had to leave for now.

“I’ll be back in a few,” he said as he got up. “Got someplace to go.”

No one asked him where he was headed. Maybe that would become more of a widespread thing now. One could only hope. He waved back at everyone at the table, and made his way out of the Great Hall alone.

The walk down to the dungeons was so familiar he didn’t even have to think much about where he was going. Harry had not gone down this path alone most of the time, save the handful of Mondays during his fifth year during which he had failed to learn Occlumency. The thought made him almost smile now. It was absurd.

When he got to the door of the former Potions Master’s old office, he paused and listened for a moment. Voices were coming from inside, low and conversational.

He hesitated for a moment, then knocked on the door.

The people inside the room fell silent. After a moment, the door opened, and Harry found himself looking at Remus Lupin’s scarred and lined face.

“Harry,” he said, surprise and warm greeting in his voice. “Come inside.”

Harry stepped into the office. He had never come here entirely of his own volition in his life. The same jars lined the walls, with slimy creatures and substances suspended inside of them. And the same man stood behind a brewing table, a cauldron simmering in front of him.

“Er,” he said, towards the space somewhere between the two men he faced. “Hello.”

There was a pause.

“Hello.” Snape’s voice sounded as hesitant as he himself was feeling. He had rarely heard Snape’s voice tinged with an emotion other than anger. Perhaps that should have felt alien too. 

“What are you doing down here?”

Something like an amused smirk appeared on Snape’s face. Maybe one day they would have enough of a rapport for Harry to ask him what he was smiling about. The thought came suddenly, but it didn’t come as a shock either.

“Making the wolfsbane potion.”

“Oh.” Harry looked between them. “There’s enough time left until the full moon, then?”

“Only just,” said Snape. 

“It’ll be in eight days,” Lupin supplied. Then, at Harry’s slightly puzzled expression, “It takes only one full day to make the potion.”

“Oh,” said Harry again. “I’m glad.”

Snape suppressed a yawn behind his hand.

“You seem tired, sir,” said Harry, chuckling slightly. Snape gave a quiet snort.

“I haven’t been able to help,” said Lupin, moving into the room and looking apologetic. “I’m, ah… quite embarrassingly bad at potion-making.”

“Worse than I am?” Harry grinned.

“Most definitely,” said Snape drily, picking up a stirrer as he peered into the cauldron. Harry and Lupin laughed together.

After a moment, Harry spoke again. It would have been inconceivable of him to say something like this had it been at any other point in his life so far. Now, it came easily. 

“Would I be any help, then?”

Snape raised an eyebrow slightly. And for once during their many face-offs over a cauldron, it was not disdainful or mocking.

“Yes,” he said after a pause. “If you would be willing.”

“Yeah, I would,” said Harry. “I think enough’s been taken care of up there, anyway.”

Snape nodded. Harry caught another small smirk.

“There is not much left to do,” he told Harry as he approached the brewing table. “Just getting these roots chopped and adding them will do it.” He pushed a cutting board towards Harry. Harry reached the opposite end of the table and pulled it towards him.

“That makes it seem like I don’t know how to chop roots,” said Lupin, amused protest in his voice. Harry caught Snape raise an eyebrow at the man out of the corner of his eye.

“Does it matter how I chop them?” Harry asked.

“No, it does not,” said Snape. “They only need to be small enough to dissolve quickly.”

“Oh, okay.”

Still, Harry had never concentrated on chopping up an ingredient more, even compared to his O.W.L. exam. As he worked, he heard the quiet talk of the two men next to him. They didn’t exchange more than a few short sentences. Snape talked differently when he was talking to Lupin, he noticed.

“That’s good enough,” said Snape, a minute later. Harry, who had been staring at the roots and wondering whether he would cut them into smaller pieces, looked up at him and grinned.

“Okay.”

Snape pulled the cutting board back towards him.

“I thank you,” he said.

“Oh.” Harry blinked, and nodded, smiling. “Yeah. It wasn’t any trouble. Can I talk for a bit, if it’s not distracting?”

“Go ahead.” Snape dropped the roots into the cauldron, and the mixture fizzed and bubbled up where they had entered.

“Take a seat, Harry,” said Lupin, pulling out a chair from the work desk.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he said as he sat down. “I’ll only be here for a bit, though.”

He paused before he spoke. “It’s… about the trials.” Snape looked up, and their eyes met. “You did get a summons, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.” Snape nodded at one of the shelves, and Harry spotted an open envelope that he recognized to be from the Ministry.

“Yeah, well,” said Harry. “Ministry officials came by and asked me to pass on the message, that it’ll just be procedure for the most part. But also that you should come prepared just in case there are some unsympathetic people in the jury."

Snape raised an eyebrow again, and he nodded mutely. Harry knew that both of them knew the ‘just in case’ had just been a polite addition by the official who had delivered the news.

“Oh and,” said Harry. He had decided he would say this, but it was still as hard to get the words out as he had anticipated. “If it comes to that,” he said, willing himself to just get the words out and get over it, “I can testify in your defense.”

Snape was quiet for a moment, blinking at Harry. Harry could see Lupin’s eyes travelling between the two of them.

Snape opened his mouth. “You do not have to do so.”

Harry had expected that. He sighed, unable to help a small smile of exasperation. It was almost remarkable how easy it was to correctly anticipate Snape’s reactions; the man had been hidden in an impenetrable shadow for all of this time.

“I know,” he said, throwing in a cheeky smirk of his own for good measure. “But I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience! The busy time is very nearly over, and hopefully I'll be able to jump right into the usual upload schedule from now on.
> 
> Comments and kudos absolutely make my day, and thank you so much for reading! :D


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+ Luna Lovegood)
> 
> The things we wondered, the things we hoped for.

Australia held little danger.

Yerin Savage still insisted on Apparating to various different sites as diversions, and stopping to search every place they landed in, for anywhere from half a minute to a full fifteen. Luna and Hermione followed her with little complaint. Luna knew that for Hermione, it was because of her respect for procedures.

“Are you checking the tracking charm?” she asked, during a guarded foray into a small village. Hermione looked up, and nodded.

“They’re still alright,” she said.

Luna smiled. “I’m glad.”

At long last, Savage turned to Hermione, told her to lead. Hermione looked extremely nervous as she held out her hand for Luna to grasp, and they Apparated into a thicket of bushes. Craning her head around, Luna could see that they were standing right next to a neatly polished street. The small row of houses were surrounded by greenery.

“They’re down the street,” Hermione said, as Savage and Luna followed her towards the houses. 

“I should go into the house with you,” Savage told her, lengthening her stride so that she and Hermione were walking side by side. Luna walked close behind, looking around at the houses. They all looked pretty much the same.

Hermione nodded, perhaps too anxious to speak.

“I’ll stay outside,” Luna said. Hermione nodded again.

“Yes,” Savage said, “It’s pretty certain that there’s nothing to fear in the area, but it would be a good idea to keep a look out just in case.”

Hermione grew visibly more nervous as they reached the end of the street. Luna waved as they reached the front steps, and watched as Hermione rang the doorbell with a trembling hand, Savage standing close behind her, holding her wand in her hand. Then Luna turned, decided to look for a place to stay.

After the street ended, there was a fence, and beyond that, more greenery. Luna saw that the small village was on a little hill. She looked back at the street for a moment, and climbed over the white fence, landing on the soft ground on the other side.

As she settled down, she glanced up at the sky. It was nearly cloudless, bright and blue, and the sun was dazzling.

When she had first heard that Hermione and Dean had hidden their parents, she had felt wrong-footed. That maybe she should have done that too, for her father.  _ But dad is a wizard. _ Did that matter either way anymore, when he had disappeared, nowhere to be found?

She would have thought he would at least leave her some sort of message. That he hadn’t could mean… But it couldn’t. If he had left for good, she would know, she would feel it.

“What if I don’t have dad anymore?” she said aloud, to the vast open sky. “What do I have?”

The portraits of the four people she had drawn on her bedroom wall were a dream. Hermione had a lot of people she would choose over Luna. So did Harry, and Ronald, and Neville.  _ Maybe nothing was real, _ she thought.  _ Maybe everyone else was right, and I was making it all up. _

She sometimes wondered if everything would have been different, if her mother had still been alive.  _ I can remember her face. _ Countless times she had sat bolt upright in her bed in the middle of the night, terrified. Because she hadn’t been sure.  _ I remember her. I know what she looked like, what she sounded like. _

She had seen her in her dreams sometimes, and her face would just be blank, like someone had colored everything in and had forgotten to add facial features. And Luna would wake up screaming, and her father would knock on her door after a minute.

_ ‘Either just burst in or don’t come at all,’ _ she’d wanted to yell, every time. And she had, after a while. And a few times after that, he’d stopped coming up. And their house had grown quiet.

_ I remember what she was like. _ She used to sit on her mother’s lap and rage and cry and scream, say “Why don’t you two ever  _ talk, _ ” until her mother would grip her wrists gently and brush her hair with her fingers, and tell her that she was sorry.

So nowadays she just smiled. Smiling helped where crying had never been able to. And things were quieter. That helped too; it left space for thinking.

And the quiet had driven things out. Besides her father, she had never been enough to be anyone’s priority. Maybe she would just tell Hermione to forget it, and seek him out herself. Hermione seemed to have other things on her mind, in any case. Maybe the rumours were true, and her father had tried to sell Harry, Ron and Hermione over to the Death Eaters. Luna wasn’t sure she could ever get over that, if they actually were true.

_ But… he’s the only person I have. _

The dreamlike state, that she had inhabited for the past few years of her life, could have only lasted for so long. Now Luna felt like she had been plunged into ice cold water. She couldn’t remember the tales of mystical creatures from far away, and she couldn’t back up the logic behind conspiracy theories.  _ Maybe it was made up. Maybe I was made up. Maybe I shouldn’t have dodged, back there in the duel with Bellatrix Lestrange. _

She had truly meant all the things she said and did. That was one thing she had lived by, that she would always be truthful if she could help it. Hiding behind tempers hadn’t helped. Guarding herself hadn’t helped. So she had opened up, and let everyone in.

The thing about letting everyone in, of course, is that no one deigns to stay for very long.

She had never really known how to do things differently. The only person she remembered being exceptionally special to her was her mother. She was supposed to teach Luna how to do it, how to pass the feeling on. Instead she had been buried, and her daughter’s endless questions with her.  _ If I had picked one person and called them special, would I be feeling less empty now? _

_ If someone had picked me and called me special. _

She heard someone calling her from behind her, and turned. She could see Savage, Hermione, and two other figures through the spaces between the white wood.

“Coming,” she called. She got up, dusted herself off, walked to the fence and climbed over it.

“I apologize for wandering off,” she said.

“It’s alright,” said Savage. “You were where we could see you.”

Luna shook hands with Mr. and Mrs. Granger. Both of their eyes were red, but Luna didn’t mention it. She had learned that strangers didn’t like it when you mentioned things like that.

“You must be Luna,” said Mr. Granger as he took her hand.

“Yes,” she said. One more person who knew her name. Who knew, who would forget. “It’s very nice to meet you.”

“I’ll be escorting the two of you back to St. Mungo’s Hospital, where all the Muggle relatives of the wizardfolk that fought in the war are staying at the moment.” Savage gestured for them to follow.

“Oh,” said Hermione. Luna hadn’t known that either. Hermione looked like she half-wanted to ask some questions about it, probably to check if her theory on the reason was correct. But she kept quiet, squeezed her mother’s hand.

“Will we be taking a non-magic route?” Mr. Granger asked.

“Yes,” said Savage. “But streamlined.” She did not explain further.

At the end of the street, a car had been parked. Luna could feel that it was not a Muggle vehicle.

“Well, this is it,” said Savage, opening the door to the backseat. She turned to Hermione. “I suppose we’ll be parting our ways here temporarily?”

Hermione nodded. Luna looked around at her.

“I’m going to go with you next, remember?” said Hermione.

Luna blinked.

“I will catch up to the pair of you after the journey,” said Savage. “Send back a message when you receive one, and send a distress call if you need to. Take safe routes until I join you if possible.”

“Yes,” Hermione said.

She hugged and kissed her parents, and waved at them as they drove off. All the while Luna was standing silent beside her. She felt like she had done something wrong.

“Hermione,” she said, after the car had disappeared around a corner and Hermione had turned to face her again, “maybe you should be with…”

“I promised, didn’t I?” said Hermione, eyebrows raised. “And I’ll have time. We need to find your father. It’s the important thing now.”

Luna nodded slowly.

“Maybe we should settle down somewhere first,” said Hermione, her tone brisk and businesslike. “Write down the places we could look, you know, before we head off. Going back into the house would be good, we’ll need to do some planning before we start looking.”

Luna nodded again.

“Thank you,” she said.

Hermione nodded, smiling. “Come on,” she said, and started to walk back down the street. Luna hesitated.

“Hermione,” she said quietly.

Hermione turned to look at her, and her eyes were brown, and also red.

“What makes something real?”

Hermione blinked. “What do you mean?” she said, after a beat.

“I mean, how do I know if something actually exists, and isn’t made up?”

Hermione blinked again, and stared at Luna. 

She didn’t answer for a long moment. But when she did, she sounded as confident as she had when she had first argued with Luna over the same question, inside an old dank bar that smelled of goats, whose ceiling had not yet caved in.

“If you can feel it,” she said.

* * *

The wolfsbane had tasted as appalling as it always had.

Remus had changed into one of Severus’s roomier nightclothes and gone to the small bathroom adjoined with Severus’s quarters to wash the taste out of his mouth. He felt it was somewhat unfair that even that was harder to do than with most other things.

Severus was waiting for him outside the door when he came back out. He was wearing nightclothes as well.

“You look like you might collapse,” said Remus, taking him into his arms. It was starting to feel like second nature again. He still couldn’t quite believe it.

“I can sleep it off,” Severus mumbled into his shoulder.

“Well, I definitely hope so.” Remus steered him around. “Come.”

“I have to wash.”

“I’ll do a few charms on you, if you’d like. Can’t have you falling asleep in the shower.”

“Oh, right,” Severus pointed sleepily at him, still being pulled to the bed, “you’re good with washing spells.”

“Just one of my very few talents.” 

Severus chuckled, and Remus felt like he had won something.

They had reached the bed. Severus lowered himself onto it, shuffling to the side facing the wall.

“Do you want me to change the sheets for you?”

Severus shook his head and beckoned. Remus smiled, and climbed in next to him. He felt arms around his waist, and reached for the man in front of him, throwing a leg over both of Severus’s.

“Wait,” he remembered. “Let me grab my wand.”

He reached behind him to the bedside table for it.

“Close your eyes,” he said.

He remembered using washing spells on Severus a few times before, often after he’d already fallen asleep from exhaustion. He traced the man’s tired face with his eyes and brushed back his hair, and when Severus muttered that he was dirty he recalled him saying so before.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

After he announced that he was done, he started to turn around again to lay his wand back where he’d grabbed it from, and felt Severus’s hand on the back of his neck, pulling him in.

He ended up just putting his wand above his head. He was vaguely worried it would fall through the open spaces in the frame, but he was sure it wouldn’t be damaged. It wasn’t that important anyway.

“I suppose we need to talk,” Severus said. His eyes were open now, but he still looked extremely wrung out.

Remus was threading the man’s hair through his fingers. “Yes,” he said quietly. “We do. It can wait until tomorrow, though.”

Severus raised an eyebrow, and raised a hand to cup Remus’s cheek. “I can practically feel all the questions you’re waiting to ask.”

“You don’t know what they are, though.”

“That’s the problem.”

Remus chuckled. “Are you sure now is a good time?”

“Mm.” Severus moved his arm so that it rested on Remus’s waist again. “I’m sure we won’t be able to go through everything, but I…” He paused, and when he blinked, Remus saw something other than relieved exhaustion in his eyes. “I owe you that much.”

“Let’s not weigh what we owe each other,” said Remus softly. “You just spent a whole day up making the wolfsbane for me.”

He remembered all of his anger and confusion from before. Severus had been so much easier to resent when he had been far away, when Remus had believed him to be a traitor. Just now he wasn’t sure if he would ever feel anger towards him again. 

And he was much less scared than he had been before as well, he realized, here under warm sheets, with the two of them tangled up together. What they had had never felt more solid.

“That’s not —”

Remus shushed the man, leaned forward to press his lips against his for good measure.

“Alright,” he said, after. “Let’s talk for a bit. Until you fall asleep.”

“Alright.” Severus’s eyes were open and their depths were endless, and Remus thought he would never stop being transfixed by the sight. “Just ask me.”

And so Remus asked. He skipped over the death of Albus Dumbledore; he had heard enough to know what had happened, and felt he wouldn’t be able to talk about it without becoming furious again. So instead he asked him about the chase first, the night Harry had been moved to the Burrow. And Severus answered.

“ _ You _ suggested the idea of identical Harrys?” 

“I Confunded Mundungus Fletcher.”

“I see. Well.”

“... You still haven’t forgiven him.”

“No, not really.”

Severus smiled slightly. “The Order is — was, full of those dedicated to the cause. You don’t find people like that very often. Most everyone wouldn’t even be able to do half of what Fletcher did.”

Remus raised his eyebrows, and started stroking the man’s hair again. “You did much more than anyone else. I can’t imagine how you did it.”

“Well,” said Severus. “I had something to lose.”

“Very Slytherin way to say you had something to fight for,” Remus laughed. “And I suppose I did too, we all did.”

And he suddenly realized that in the end, he hadn’t lost, at least nothing he hadn’t already lost long ago. He was still here, and he had managed not to Turn anyone during the war, and Severus’s tired face was warm.

“So. What else do you want to know?” Remus felt Severus’s face move as he spoke, with his hand against the man’s cheek.

“How things were,” whispered Remus, after a moment. He had closed his eyes. “During the past year.”

There was a moment before Severus spoke. 

“That’ll take quite a while,” he said at last.

“We have time,” muttered Remus, his eyes still shut, and his thumb drew circles around the highpoint of Severus’s cheekbone. “We have all the time in the world now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We have hit the 20-chapter mark :)) Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Comments and kudos are always greatly appreciated, and I'll see you all next week with the next chapter <3


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Severus Snape
> 
> New thoughts are better when coupled with old memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late update; my personal life got unexpectedly busy these past couple of days! This chapter's longer than usual though, so I hope it makes up for it somewhat :)) thank you for your patience, I hope you enjoy the read!

Two days since the Second Wizarding War had ended, Severus Snape awoke and for a moment thought he was dreaming, about a morning from four years ago. He felt warmth around him and breathed in a familiar faint scent of smoke, and when he recognized what it was his heart dropped to his stomach. He willed himself not to realize, not to wake, keep the feeling here and real for as long as he could.

And then he remembered, and he opened his eyes.

He could feel Remus’s slow breathing from right above his head, feel and see the rise and fall of his chest. He stared at his own hand resting on the man’s chest for a few seconds, giving himself time to take it all in. Then he considered crying but decided that would be an appalling thing for Remus to wake up to. Unfortunately that did not stop the tears from coming, and he silently wept with his face buried in sheets, feeling an arm around his back and the peaceful slumber of the man beside him.

After a moment he felt the body next to him shifting, and a second later heard a little sigh from somewhere above him.

“Mm.” A soft voice, sounding a little startled, went through him with a tingle that made him tremble a little. The arm that had been resting on him drew back only to return to hold him tighter, and he thought he just might faint from the sheer warmth of it all. Perhaps his tired mind from the past day and a half had not quite picked up on how abrupt of a shift these last hours had been. He felt Remus’s lips on his left temple.

“Severus.”

“Give me a,” he cut himself off with an involuntary sniff. A firm hand coaxed him to turn around, and his face was buried in Remus’s chest the next moment.

“You’re alright,” said Remus.

Severus sniffed again. “‘M alright.”

“No, you’re not.”

Severus let out a snort between sobs. The arms around him tightened.

They lay there like that, Remus’s hand on the back of his head and legs tangled together, until Severus’s tears subsided. When he felt it might be safe enough to dislodge himself he cleared his throat experimentally, and he felt Remus withdraw just slightly.

Severus blinked, his eyes somewhere near Remus’s shoulder. He was embarrassed, not knowing what to say. Then he felt a hand lifting his chin up and Remus bent down for a peck on the lips. He heard the man hum quietly again, and every stray thought faded around him.

“What time is it?” he said after a moment.

Remus craned his neck upwards to check the clock on the wall opposite. “Seven in the morning.”

“Oh.” They had stayed up until at least three o' clock last night.

“You should sleep more,” Remus said, apparently thinking along the same lines, “you should sleep in today.”

Severus suppressed a yawn and shifted in the sheets. “Will you be getting up?”

“No, not if you aren’t.”

Remus’s eyes had a twinkle in them. If it had been four years ago, Severus would have scowled. Perhaps someday he would start doing it again.

Then he remembered. “You said you still needed to tell me something, after…” 

Remus smiled. “I did.”

A few moments’ pause.

“So are you going to say what it is?”

“I’m stalling, can’t you tell?” The twinkle was back. “Just a couple more seconds.”

Severus raised his eyebrows, and earned himself a chuckle and a kiss on the forehead.

“Alright,” said Remus. “You don’t have to… tell me anything if you don’t want to, you know that, don’t you? But I would like to know, still. To hear it from you.”

Severus nodded.

“When I went down to the kitchens yesterday morning,” Remus continued, “I ran into Professor Sprout. She uhm, asked me if I could pass on a message.”

“Oh.”

Severus knew what it must be about now, though he had had a sneaking suspicion at the back of his mind since last night. Pomona Sprout had always been the voluntary third party for resolving conflicts. Except for the past year, when she had been united with most of the other professors in disdain and disgust towards him.

Remus was gazing into his eyes as if searching for something. The amber framing his pupils was a bit more prominent now, a week before the moon would become full. 

“I…” Severus paused and thought about what he should say. Last night, he had not talked about how the non-Death Eater members of staff had treated him. He could tell back then that Remus had noticed the omission, and could also sense that the man had wanted to ask about it back then too.

“If you don’t want to say anything —”

“No,” said Severus. “No, I do want to.”

He thought back to what he had told himself the day before. If he could talk to anyone about this, it was the man in front of him.

“When Professor McGonagall came down here, couple days back,” he started, “I suppose I should tell you what was said.”

While he spoke, Remus drew slow, light circles down his arm. It was almost absentminded, and it felt like healing spells on torn skin.

“I suppose you won’t agree with the way I… went about things,” he said, after he had finished.

“I don’t know the full story,” said Remus quietly. “And I’m not you. You were wronged, whatever the circumstances were, and… whatever you choose to do, I support your decision.”

“It’s strange even to myself,” he was watching Remus’s faint shadow flickering with the lamps on the walls, “that I could forgive… Dumbledore, but not her.”

“Have you really forgiven him?”

Severus thought for a moment.

“I suppose — not,” he said at last, frowning. “I don’t really know. Maybe I’d be less understanding if…” _If he were still here._

“Mm.”

“I just… recall things, when I see her,” Severus continued. Now that he had started, it was harder to filter out what to say and what not to. “And I get angry, I know it’s not her fault —”

He cut himself off. He felt almost embarrassed.

“You’re not wrong to feel angry,” Remus said softly. “I suppose that… the question is whether you want to make amends with her in the end, or not?”

“What did Professor Sprout say, exactly?”

Remus frowned. “To ask you to consider talking to Professor McGonagall again.”

“Anything else?”

“... She told me that she’s been distressed.”

Severus sighed. The beginnings of old anger were starting to simmer in his head as he remembered her plea to let her make things right. At the moment he wasn’t sure if it was her his resentment was directed towards, or himself.

Remus shook his head, as if he could see what Severus was feeling. Then again, he probably could.

“It isn’t your fault,” he said, and Severus’s chest felt like he’d just let out a breath he’d been holding. “You can do what you want to. It’s alright.”

He stayed silent, nodding slowly, struggling to keep his face impassive. Remus leaned closer and kissed the side of his face.

“I’ve told you,” Severus heard, close to his ear. Quiet, almost imploring. “You don’t have to… try to hide.” An intake of breath. “Please. I don’t want you to —” 

“I’m sorry.” He nudged his face against the man’s neck and sighed again. “Just — I’m nearing forty, I felt maybe I should be able to figure things like this out for myself.” _I feel foolish._

“We can still not know some things. And we can talk about them. It’s what all people do.”

 _I didn’t,_ thought Severus, but he was aware that the man already knew that. And for all Remus’s talk, Severus knew he had never been the type to confess his confusions either. Perhaps — bizarrely — because of that, he felt better at hearing those words from Remus’s mouth. He took them in, and they stayed comfy in a stretch of silence for a few moments.

“I think,” he said, “I’ll need some time. A few days, to think it all over.”

“Alright.”

“I just don’t think I can think clearly at the moment, it’s all… too fresh.”

“Alright,” Remus repeated. His smile was quiet and warm.

“What do you think we’ll do, after all this?” said Severus suddenly, after a pause.

“Ah,” said Remus. “Did you give that some thought as well?”

“It’s not been long since I started,” Severus admitted. _I didn’t think I’d ever have the chance to_ — but of course Remus already knew that. He knew far too much about him. Maybe it was because he was so similar sometimes.

“Me neither,” said Remus. “It’s all been… so long.”

“Mm.”

“Since we were barely of age. Before that, even.” They were gazing at each other again. “And it’s been — it’s been twenty years, Merlin.”

Severus could have done a thousand things differently. And among them were things he regretted in his bones, things that he would probably never forget. Perhaps if he could go back in time, he would choose differently. Or — perhaps he wouldn’t. Maybe, just maybe, he would do everything exactly the same. For fear of losing this moment, right here. 

“Remus,” he said.

“Hm?”

_“I love you,”_ the man had said, and Severus had not yet said it back. 

_If I’d asked you to run away with me, would you have come? Because I almost did._

“That day, last year…” 

Remus’s eyes widened slightly. His thumb brushed a strand of Severus’s hair back from his face.

“I didn’t want to leave,” said Severus. He spoke quietly, as if he was afraid of the words themselves — just like he had a few days earlier, on the fourth floor of the south wing with a mask in his hand. “I didn’t. I… I swear.”

He looked at his hand resting on Remus’s chest. His heart ached and he could feel it beating in his ribs.

“If I could have… I would have stayed. If…” 

They were staring at each other and for a split second Severus was transported back, back to that night. When he had tried to quell the burning at the back of his throat with wordless intimacy, that had only sent him plummeting further into desperation and despair. He had thought he would never be seeing Remus like this again.

Remus let out a breath that was half a chuckle, half a sob. Then he reached around Severus’s head and pulled him close, and Severus knew that he must be remembering too.

“Let’s…”

“Hm?” He gripped the familiar back tight, and they clung to each other.

“Please.” It was more a prayer than a plea. Severus knew what he was trying to say. He thought that he might at long last believe it.

“Yes,” he said.

* * *

When they both turned around at a knock on his office door a couple of hours later, for a split second Severus froze. Then he realized that the knock had not been Professor McGonagall’s. He exchanged a look with Remus, and he knew that they were half-expecting the same person.

“Enter,” Severus called.

A head of messy black hair came into view.

“This isn’t a bad time, is it?”

“Not at all,” said Remus. “Come in, Harry.”

Harry shuffled inside. Severus used to be irked at him dragging his feet like that. Now it almost felt like a friendly wave — not that Severus had ever really trusted friendly waves.

“Hello,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

“What is it?” said Severus.

Harry blinked, and that half-smirk of a grin spread across his face.

“Can’t I just come for a visit?”

“I’m sure there are plenty of people more enjoyable for you to visit upstairs.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, sir,” he said, his smile widening still. “There are loads of people who are more unpleasant than you in the castle right now.

“Like Cormac McLaggen,” he added, at Severus’s raised eyebrow. “I’m just back from hearing how fantastic he was in combat. Ernie Macmillan told us after he left that he came in time for the last couple minutes, and he apparently stayed outside trying to look into the hall the whole time.”

Severus snorted.

“Do you remember Cormac McLaggen, Remus?” said Harry.

“I think I — hmm.”

“The Stunner dodge,” said Severus drily.

“Oh!” Remus chuckled softly. 

Harry was glancing between the two of them, looking mildly curious. “What was the Stunner dodge?” he said, as he dragged an extra chair over to the teacher’s desk.

After Remus recounted the tale of McLaggen attempting to look cool while dodging a Stunner he was supposed to be deflecting — and most predictably bringing a table down with him as a result — there was silence for a few moments. Then Harry turned towards Severus again.

“Sir.”

Severus nodded, knowing this was what Harry had come to talk about.

“Kingsley Shacklebolt dropped in just a few minutes ago, and he told us that there would be an immediate pass to start training to be an Auror, for those of us who were sixth years last year.”

“‘Us’?”

“Well,” said Harry, “me, but he said it would be open for everyone.”

“I see.” So the former Auror head had his eye on the boy. Then, it would be foolish not to, Severus supposed. “And did you take the offer?”

“That’s the thing,” said Harry. “I… didn’t know what I should do, really. So I told him I’d think about it.”

Severus raised his eyebrows again, somewhat surprised.

“Wasn’t becoming an Auror your desired career path?” He was remembering the disastrous Christmas party of two years ago, and judging by Harry’s sheepish grin, so was he.

“It was, yeah,” he said. “But… I don’t know. I don’t know why but I feel less certain about it, now.”

“That is understandable,” said Severus. Few would want to lead a life of combat straight away, after having been the centre of a nationwide war.

“I was wondering,” said Harry, “what do you think?”

Severus frowned. “Of the offer you received?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I wondered if you think jumping into Auror training would be a good choice, or… if I should finish my education first.”

Severus was so taken aback that Harry Potter was asking him for career advice that he couldn’t think of an answer for a moment.

“It is definitely an offer worth considering,” Severus said after he’d gathered himself. “If you are not unsure of whether you want to pursue the field itself, then I believe it would be the better choice to take it. If you are unsure, however, studying to take N.E.W.T’s could help one think more broadly about their potential career paths. You are to do internship programs and such along with your studies that year.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “I didn’t know much about that.”

“That could possibly because you were previously aiming to become an Auror,” said Severus. It felt strange, giving careers advice again. “The Auror department doesn’t have official programs for which seventh years are eligible.”

“Oh,” Harry said again, “yeah, maybe.”

“I am also fairly certain that the Auror office will want to take you on even if you apply the next year.”

Harry blinked. “I don’t know about that,” he said, and his laugh was not the chuckle of someone just being humble. Severus met Remus’s eyes, and Remus smiled at him. _I’ve been telling you all along._

Severus waved a dismissive hand at Harry.

“Ask anyone on the subject,” he said. “The answer is obvious. You would be an asset to the Auror office.”

He would have never thought he’d see the day he would feel that Harry’s ego was in need of boosting. Harry looked surprised as well; he laughed again, still sounding uncertain.

“If you do decide to finish your education first,” said Severus after a moment, “will you be returning to Hogwarts?”

He had suddenly been struck with a thought about how all of the things that happened here might change everything. Perhaps hundreds of students would not return to this castle, this ancient building that had seen so many children grow. Maybe this would be the beginning of the end of Hogwarts school. This place, that had torn him to shreds, but that had also made him.

“I guess it depends.” Harry was silent for a few seconds, apparently thinking it through.

Then, “Will you… still be teaching?”

Severus blinked, and looked back up at Harry, almost expecting it to have been some kind of auditory illusion or even a roundabout jab. Which was ridiculous if he stopped and thought about it; the boy had never known how to be subtle. And he had never mastered keeping thoughts hidden. But that tone couldn’t have been what Severus had heard it as.

“I am not sure,” he said slowly, knowing he’d paused for too long. “As of yet.”

“Oh, okay,” said Harry. “I just figured, you know, since Slughorn’s here and if he’s not going back into retirement, you might teach Defense the next year. The curse would’ve — it would have broken now, wouldn’t it?”

Severus nodded slowly.

“Professor Slughorn,” he said, for lack of anything else to say.

Harry laughed.

“Can I, er, ask you something? Sir?” he said after a pause. "It's nothing that serious, but I just remembered I'd been curious about it."

“Go ahead.”

“Why did you apply for the Defense job every year?”

The question brought back memories that he had not expected; of manipulation under the guise of mutual benefit, of glances that were almost inside jokes, had he been sharing them with an equal. Of petty hopes and justifications.

And bizarrely, Severus almost smiled.

“I did not,” he said.

Harry stayed for longer than Severus would have expected him to, and Remus brought out the magically refilled basket from the day before for them to eat while they talked. The conversation was easy, with Harry telling them of how the rest of the castle was doing, from what he’d seen. All the while the young man dodged around uncomfortable topics with an easy tactfulness, the kind that Severus used to envy.

For the rest of the time Harry remained in his old office, the back of Severus’s mind was still wondering what he had meant by asking if he would be teaching the next year. It had almost sounded like he had been saying… that if Severus was teaching, he would return. Like that was the deciding factor he had had in mind when he had said it depended. But that was absurd. 

Or was it? After all, he had come to ask him for advice. Him, of all people. Sometime in the past couple of days, the boy had apparently started placing value in what he had to say.

But was he sure he had heard that question right?

When Harry turned around at the door to wave at them, Severus responded with a slight incline of his head, and this time he did smile. Incredulous surprise still lingering in his head, he watched Harry’s back as it vanished from sight, the young man he thought he might actually understand now more than ever before.

Someone who sought guidance, from a man who had once made every mistake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long time since I've written a full chapter with just one POV throughout! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading <3 and as always, comments and kudos make my day!


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> POV: Remus Lupin (+Ron Weasley)
> 
> Things will get easier.

Remus fished around in the basket for more bread, and a second later it was full to the brim with food again.

“I could go out to get something other than that, you know.”

“If you want to,” said Remus, a small warm loaf of bread already in his hand. “I’m fine with just these.”

He was sitting up in bed, tucked into the sheets. He had been dragged there by Severus after he had told him in passing that he felt rather unwell. He knew he must be feeling the influence of the approaching full moon on his body; it had started around half an hour after Harry had left that morning. 

Severus was gazing at him.

“What?” Remus said, smiling.

“How are you feeling?”

“Well,” Remus shrugged his shoulders experimentally, stretched his legs. “Joint and muscle pain, it feels like my bones are giving off vibrations — the usual. Though it’s almost never been this bad this early.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t look so worried,” he said, leaning over to brush hair out of Severus’s face. “It’s probably because I exerted myself; you know, with the war and all. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”

“You’re old now.”

“You say that like you aren’t two months older than me.” Remus laughed.

Severus smirked, then his expression sobered. When he next spoke, his voice was quieter.

“Was it hard?” he said.

“Hard?” Remus’s hand was covering Severus’s. The man nodded at Remus’s gaze. “The past year, you mean. Well, as hard as any other time without the potion. It’s alright, the Order made sure of my safety, kept me away from people.”

“That’s not good for you.”

“Well, no.” Remus had found he was always much more exhausted and hurt after he had spent a night of confinement. He had told Severus that, last year. “But still, it’s better than risking hurting anyone.” He had told him that too.

“I know.”

There was a pause.

“Don’t.” Remus leaned forwards again, took Severus’s face in both hands. It still felt too good to be true. “Please don’t think like that, about things we couldn’t control.”

Severus looked like he might argue back. Remus sighed, and he crowded closer and kissed him.

“It’s all alright,” he said, Severus’s breath on his lips, “it’s alright now.”

He had hurt, he had howled at boarded windows and scratched at himself until he bled into unconsciousness. Another layer of scars now covered him like a tapestry. He knew that Severus must know it all already, but he was still glad the man couldn’t see into his memories. The mornings after, where the people had all been too busy and everything had been heavier. The furtive glances his way, the subtle hints of the burden he posed mere days after he had finished an undercover mission.

_ I’d do it all over again, if that meant this moment would come. _

After a moment — seconds stretched out into minutes, hours — Severus grunted, and lightly pushed him back into bed. “You should be resting.”

Their hands stayed interlocked, and Severus shifted closer. Remus fished another loaf of bread out of the basket and handed it to him.

“Thanks.”

Remus watched him take a bite. They sat quietly together for a moment.

“So,” he said after a moment. “Harry.”

Severus’s hand paused on its way to his mouth. “What about him?”

“Nothing much,” said Remus. He realized he was smiling again. “I’m just glad you seem to be getting along.”

“At long last.” Severus’s tone was dry, but Remus caught an undercurrent of something else beneath it. 

“I think he likes you.”

The man raised his eyebrows, laughed. “I don’t know about that. That would be a rather abrupt shift.”

“Well, he didn’t really… know you before.”

Severus looked up and met his eyes. “I don’t think I knew him, either,” he said, and it was a quiet admission. The kind you couldn’t ever really expect from someone like him. Remus thought he just might burst.

“Better late than never,” he said. The smile was starting to hurt his face muscles a little. “It seems like you convinced him to continue his education, earlier.”

Severus made a noncommittal kind of noise. He suddenly looked like he wanted to ask something. Remus had an idea of what it might be.

“I think,” he said, watching the man beside him, “he wants you to be the one teaching him Defense next term.”

He saw Severus’s eyes widen a little.

“Did you —”

So Remus had guessed right. Harry’s tone when he’d asked the question had been obvious, and if anyone could catch subtle nuances and hidden statements, it was Severus. But then, it seemed to be different when it came to things like this. Remus was torn between amusement and sorrow.

“He likes you,” he said again. “And he respects you. Even I could see that.”

Years upon years ago —  _ “Why did you do it?” “The respect. I needed the respect.” _ How far had they come since then? Severus’s face was full of shock and hesitation.

“Why else would he have come to you for advice?” He squeezed the hand in his grip tight. “His former head of House was in the castle, and she was probably easier to visit.”

“I don’t know,” said Severus. He sounded uncertain, as if conceding would make something final.

“Come here.” Remus lifted his arms and felt a slight throb in his shoulders. But Severus folded into him wordlessly and then he was no longer aching.

“You knew Charity Burbage,” Severus said suddenly, his head against Remus’s chest.

“Yes. Not well, but we did talk when I taught here.”

“I watched her die.”

In a flash, Remus recalled the news of the Muggle Studies professor’s resignation and the Order’s doubt over it. He had remembered the kind eyes and plain silver earrings back then, and told himself  _ No, she’s just gone into hiding, _ back then when it had all been too much already. He had known that just one more thing would have broken him for good, it would have been the last straw.

Now he clutched Severus tight to him and cradled his head. His chest constricted but his mind had not clouded over and the wind had not been knocked out of him, and maybe it was terribly cruel of him to care less now than he would have in the past.

“She talked to me,” Severus said. Remus could tell he was crying. “Before she was killed, she talked to me. Maybe it was done on purpose.”

“What do you mean?” Remus whispered. The kind eyes that were crescents from smiling, no, now wide open in horror in his mind — he shook his head to clear it.

“A test.” Severus’s voice was muffled against the fabric of Remus’s shirt. “He used to do it from time to time. Relatives, old acquaintances. Sometimes people got… punished, for reacting the wrong way.”

Remus couldn’t think of anything to say. He had rarely heard about the things that happened behind closed doors. A million thoughts, of how and why, were swirling in his head, each more horrifying than the next.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

Severus shook his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“No,” said Remus, “don’t be.”

“I don’t know why I brought it up.”

“No,” said Remus. “It’s alright. I just wish —” He sensed that his voice was about to break, and fell quiet for a moment. He had been reminded of just how helpless he had been before. Sometimes it had felt like he was watching Severus through a glass window, never able to reach him, to hear and to understand, to step in to help.

He felt Severus shifting his head, and the man inched upwards until their faces were at a level.

“Hm?” he muttered, his hand resting on Remus’s face this time.

“I wish I could have done more.” Remus managed to get the words out without having to pause, though he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking.

“You’re a hypocrite,” said Severus. His voice was warm, and Remus choked out a laugh.

“Here,” Remus heard him mutter, after a moment. He clumsily wiped his eyes and followed the voice, his hand moving to rest at the back of Severus’s head. He knew both of their eyes would be unmistakably red, and he realized that he was inexplicably happy underneath it all.

Perhaps Severus would let more of it out someday, the things that clearly haunted him. Maybe they would let down their baggage one by one, and one day, they just might even be free.

* * *

Two days into his stay, Ron had gotten somewhat used to the Hufflepuff common room.

He had awoken to find that all but one of the four other beds were empty. Percy was still sound asleep. Ron knew he had spent the better part of the past day running around the castle trying to help everything and everyone at once. His brother had been acting like he was constantly being chased around by something.

After washing his face, he changed into the same clothes from the day before, magically cleaned, moving around the room as quietly as he could so as not to wake Percy. Then he headed out into the corridor and up towards the Great Hall.

Fewer people were to be found inside the hall by the day. Today he couldn’t find anyone in his family there except for Charlie, and he’d shuffled over to where he was sitting.

“Hey.”

Charlie took a second to respond. He turned around in his seat, his red-rimmed eyes spotting Ron.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was groggy.

“Where are all the others?” Ron was half-considering leaving the hall again to look for someone else. It seemed Charlie needed to concentrate to hear what he was saying.

“Ginny said she was going out to the grounds, to meet… a friend.” Charlie frowned slightly. “Dad’s gone to the Ministry again, George is with mum. Dunno about Bill and Percy.”

“Percy’s still asleep,” said Ron.

“Oh.”

Ron stood there for a moment, unsure of what to do. He had never seen Charlie like this; he’d always been the one to drag his littlest brother around by the hand, to tell him about his latest endeavours with stars in his eyes. Now they were clouded over, and Ron had no idea how to break through, the brother that had once been so easy.

Had he been in a state like this since yesterday? Well, Ron wouldn’t know that; he had spent the past day with curtains of his own draped around him, staring into space while curled up in a corner of the Hufflepuff common room. He had only gone up to the Hall for meals, and even then he hadn’t had the energy to pay attention to anyone else.

Now, he felt wrongfooted by it all. He wasn’t good at this. Things like this had always been best in Bill’s hands, or… or the twins’. He shook his head, fighting back tears, and cleared his throat.

“Hey, Charlie.”

“Ron,” said Charlie, “I’m sorry, but I think I want to be left alone right now.”

“Oh.” Ron felt something sink in his stomach and his insides twisted, though he thought he also felt a rush of something almost like relief. “Okay. I’ll catch up with you later, alright?”

His brother nodded, almost absentmindedly. Ron recalled him from two days ago, punching his chest over and over, hard enough to bruise.

He made his way back out of the hall. In the entrance hall, he looked around, not knowing where to go. Maybe he should just head back to the Hufflepuff common room, maybe find some DA members there.

“Ron!”

He whipped around so fast his neck cricked. A familiar face was coming up the stairs.

“Harry.”

Ron strode forwards to meet him, and they pulled each other into a tight hug, like the one they’d shared right after Ron had returned that winter night. With seeing Harry’s face had come a rush of the feeling that they had spent an eternity apart. It had only been a couple of days, Ron remembered.

“Where were you yesterday?” he said.

“Oh, just. In the hall, around the castle,” said Harry. “Seeing if I could help with anything. Meeting people.”

“Meeting people?”

“Yeah.”

“Must’ve been horrible.”

Harry laughed. “What about you?” he asked.

“Yesterday? I spent most of my time in the common room.”

“Didn’t you come up to the Hall for meals?”

“I did.”

“Oh.” Harry scratched the back of his head and his hair became even messier. “I must have missed you or something.”

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I didn’t see you either.”

“I missed you.”

Ron blinked. Harry had suddenly sounded sombre.

“I… yeah,” he said, after a pause. “Me too.”

And he had missed him, almost achingly. One of the only things that had held him steady, the person who had taken him back without hesitation, after everything he had done.

There was a small pause. Ron searched for something to say.

“Why were you coming up those stairs?” he said, pointing. “Had you been in the common room?”

“No,” said Harry. “I’ve just been down to the dungeons.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Harry grinned slightly. “I’ve been to see Snape.”

“Snape? What for?”

“Well — hang on, let’s head to an empty classroom or something. My legs hurt.”

Ron nodded, and started to follow Harry down the corridor.

“Snape?” he repeated.

“Yeah. I could tell you about what I’ve been doing.”

Ron nodded again. He listened while Harry told him about what he’d been doing while they had been apart, occasionally throwing in a reaction. He was able to move to the back of his mind, where things were quieter. He only pulled himself out of it to ask a question when Harry brought up what Kingsley had apparently told him.

“Everyone who would have had their seventh year this year,” Harry clarified. “That’s actually — that’s what I went to Snape about. I wanted to ask him if it’d be better to do that, or if I should finish my education.”

“Oh,” said Ron. “Why Snape? Of all people?”

Harry shrugged. The kind of shrug that said  _ I don’t know either. _

“I never thought I’d see the day you’d ask Snape for advice,” he said, and Harry laughed.

He let him do most of the talking, as they found an empty classroom and settled down in it. He listened wordlessly for a while, about the people Harry had had to meet and the locations he went to. This, he knew, was easy. Because it was Harry; Harry, his oldest friend, here beside him despite everything. 

Who he had thought was gone for good, just a few days earlier.

_ I would apologize again. _

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out suddenly. He only became aware of what he’d said after the words had left his mouth, and he heard his own voice in his ears.

Harry halted in the middle of his sentence; Ron wasn’t sure what exactly he’d been talking about. His mind was abuzz again, full of the regret that he had always carried with him, that had now risen to the surface.

“For what?” said Harry. He sounded puzzled.

Ron burst into tears for the first time in two days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know the drill; comments and kudos are the light of my life, and thank you so much for reading!! <3


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